The Hades Factor

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

President Samuel Adams Castilla had been in office three years and was already campaigning for his second term. It was a cool, gray morning in the District, and he had expected a good turnout at the Mayflower Hotel for a fund-raising breakfast, which he had canceled for this emergewncy meeting.

Annoyed and worried, he stood up from the heavy pine table he used as his Oval Office desk and stalked to the leather chair by the fireplace, where everyone was gathered. As with every president, the Oval Office reflected President Castilla's tastes. No thin-blooded, Eastern seaboard interior decorator for him. Instead, he had brought his Southwestern ranch furniture from the governor's residence in Santa Fe, and an Albuquerque artist had coordinated the red-and-yellow Navajo drapes with the yellow carpet, woven blue presidential seal, and the vases, baskets, and headdresses that made this the most native Oval Office in history.

“All right,” he said, “CNN says we've had six deaths from this virus now. Tell me how bad it really is and what we're up against.”

Sitting around a simple pine coffee table, the men and women were somber but cautiously optimistic. Surgeon General Jesse Oxnard, seated next to the secretary of Health and Human Services, was the first to answer. “There have now been fifteen deaths from an unknown virus that was diagnosed last weekend. That's here in America, of course. We've just recently learned there were six original cases, with three of them surviving. At least that's a little hopeful.”

Chief of Staff Charles Ouray added, “Reports from the WHO indicate ten or twelve thousand people overseas have contracted it. Several thousand have died.”

“Nothing to require any special emergency action on our part, I'd say.” This was the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Admiral Stevens Brose. He was leaning against the fireplace mantel under a large Bierstadt Rocky Mountain landscape.

“But a virus can spread like wildfire,” Secretary of Health and Human Services Nancy Petrelli pointed out. “I don't see how we can in all good conscience wait for the CDC or Fort Detrick to come up with countermeasures. We need to call on the private sector and contact every medical and pharmaceutical corporation for advice and help.” She looked hard at the president. “It's going to get worse, sir. I guarantee it.”

When some of the others began to protest, the president cut them off. “Just what kind of details do we know about this virus so far?”

Surgeon General Oxnard grimaced. “It's of a type never seen before, as far as Detrick and the CDC can tell. We don't know how it's transmitted yet. It's apparently highly lethal, since three people who worked with it at Detrick have died, although the mortality rate of the first six cases was only fifty percent.”

“Three out of six is lethal enough for me,” the president told them grimly. "You say we recently lost three scientists at Fort Detrick, too? Who?

“One was the medical commander, Brig. Gen. Calvin Kielburger.”

“Good Lord.” The president shook his head sadly. “I remember him. We talked soon after I took office. That's tragic.”

Admiral Brose agreed ominously: “It's blown the lid off. I'd declared the matter top secret after the first four deaths because my exec, General Caspar, reported too many amateurs were bumbling around in what could be a critical situation. I was concerned about public panic.” He paused for confirmation of the correctness of his decision. Everyone nodded, even the president. The general inhaled, relieved. “But the police were called to General Kielburger's and his secretary's homes when they were discovered dead. The hospital recognized the same virus that'd killed the first USAMRIID scientist. So now the newspeople have it. I've had to open it up, but the media knows it's got to get its information only from the Pentagon. Period.”

“Sounds like a good step,” Nancy Petrelli, the HHS secretary, agreed. “There's also a scientist who appears to have gone AWOL from Detrick. That concerns me, too.”

“He's missing? You know why?”

“No, sir,” Jesse Oxnard admitted. “But the circumstances are suspicious.”

“He disappeared soon before Kielburger and his secretary died,” the Joint Chiefs chairman explained. “We've got the army, the FBI, and the local police alerted. They'll find him. Right now we're saying it's for questioning.”

The president nodded. “That sounds reasonable. And I agree with Nancy. Let's see what the private sector can offer. Meanwhile, everyone keep me informed. A lethal virus no one knows anything about scares the hell out of me. It should scare the hell out of all of us.”

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

The multiethnic neighborhood of Adams-Morgan is a bustling district of rooftop restaurants with sweeping views of the city. Its main arteries ― Columbia Road and Eighteenth Street ― offer a lively potpourri of sidewalk cafés, neighborhood bars and clubs, new and secondhand bookstores, record stores, funky used-clothing shops, and trendy boutiques. Newcomers in the exotic dress of Guatemala and El Salvador, Colombia and Ecuador, Jamaica and Haiti, both Congos, and Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam add color to an already picturesque neighborhood.

At a rear table in a coffee shop just off Eighteenth, where coffee mugs had made circular brands that looked so old they might have been there since the days Indians trod local ridges, Special Agent Lon Forbes, FBI, waited for Lt. Col. Jonathan Smith to come to the point. He knew little personal detail about Smith except he claimed to be a friend of Bill Griffin's. That made Forbes both interested and wary.

Since he had had no time to research Smith's background beyond finding out that he was assigned to Fort Detrick as a research scientist, Agent Forbes had suggested they meet in this grungy coffee shop. He had arrived early and watched from across the street as late breakfast seekers strolled past. Then Smith had arrived.

In his drab-green officer's uniform, the lieutenant colonel had stopped to glance around outside, observed the interior from the door, and finally entered. The FBI man noticed the impressive physique of the man and a sense of repressed power. At least from an initial impression, Smith neither looked nor acted like an egghead research scientist in the arcane field of cell and molecular biology.

Smith sipped coffee, chatted about the weather ― unseasonably, warm ― asked if Forbes wanted a pastry ― Forbes declined ― and tapped his foot under the minuscule table. Forbes watched and listened. The lieutenant colonel's high-planed face was strong, faintly American Indian, and his black hair was swept neatly back. He had navy blue eyes that seemed full of a darkness that had nothing to do with their inky color. Forbes sensed violence that ached to explode. This officer was not only on edge, he was wound as tight as a steel spring.

“I need to get in touch with Bill,” Smith finally announced.

“Why?”

Smith pondered the wisdom of answering. At last he decided he would have to take the chance and reveal something of what he knew. After all, he had come here to get help. “A few days ago Bill contacted me, arranged a clandestine meeting in Rock Creek park, and warned me I might be in danger. Now I am in danger, and I need to know more about how he knew and what he knows now.”

“That's plain enough. You care to tell me what the danger is?”

“Someone wants to kill me.”

“But you don't know who?”

“In a nutshell, no, I don't.”

Forbes looked around at the empty tables. “The circumstances, what we call the environment of the danger, you don't want to get into that?”

“Right now, no. I just need to find Bill.”

“It's a big Bureau. Why me?”

“I remembered Bill saying you were about his only friend there. The only one he'd trust, anyway. You'd be on his side if the chips were down.”

Which was true, Forbes knew, as far as it went, and another plus for Smith. Bill would have told that only to another person he trusted.

“Okay. Now tell me about you and Bill.”

Smith described their childhood together, high school and college, and Forbes listened, comparing it to what Griffin had said and what he knew from the personnel file he had studied after Griffin disappeared. It all appeared to match.

Forbes drank coffee. He leaned forward in the somnolent café and contemplated his hands cupped around the mug. His voice was low and serious. “Bill saved my life. Not once, but twice. We were partners and friends and a lot more. Much, much more.” He looked up at Smith. “Okay?”

As Forbes looked up at him, Smith tried to see behind his eyes. There was a world of meaning in that single word with a question mark: Okay? Did it mean they were so close there were things between him and Bill the Bureau didn't know? Broken rules together? Covered each other's backs? Bent laws? We did things, okay? Don't ask. Not the details. Just say, when it comes to Griffin, I can be trusted to help. Can you be trusted, too?

Smith tried, “You know where he is.”

“No.”

“Can you get in touch with him?”

“Maybe.” Forbes drank the coffee more as a time filler than because he wanted it. “He's not with the Bureau anymore. I guess you didn't know that.”

“I knew. He told me when we met. What I don't know is whether I should believe him. He could be working undercover.”

“He's not undercover.” Forbes hesitated. Finally he continued, “He came from freewheeling army intelligence, and the Bureau has rules. Rules for everything. Questions about every move you make no matter how good the result. Paperwork that has to be filled out for everything. Bill was too much of a self-starter. Initiative does not go down well with the brass. Not to mention secret initiative. The Bureau likes agents to report every breath they breathe in triplicate. That never sat well with Bill.”

Smith smiled. “No, it wouldn't have.”

“He got into trouble. Insubordination. Not a team player. I took plenty of that myself. But Bill went farther. He cut rules and corners, and he didn't always account for his actions or expenses. He got accused of misappropriating funds. When he made deals to close cases, the Bureau refused to honor some that involved particularly bad characters. They made it hard for Bill, and he finally got disgusted.”

“He quit?”

Forbes reached into his jacket for a handkerchief. Smith saw the big 10mm Browning in his shoulder holster. The Bureau still believed in its agents being the men with the bigger guns. Forbes mopped his face. He was clearly worried. But not for himself. For Bill Griffin.

He said, “Not exactly. He'd met someone on a tax-fraud case, someone with money and power. I never knew who. Bill started missing meetings and staying away from the Hoover Building between assignments. When he was sent to work with a field office, sometimes he didn't show up for days. Then he blew an assignment, and there were signs of high living ― too much money, the usual. The director found evidence Bill was secretly moonlighting for the tax-fraud guy and that some of what he was doing skated pretty close to the edge ― intimidation, using his badge to lean on people, that sort of thing. In the Bureau, if you work for the Bureau, you represent the Bureau. Period. They fired him. He went to work for someone. I had the feeling it was the tax-fraud guy he'd been moonlighting for.” He shook his head regretfully. “I haven't seen him in more than a year.”

Smith tried to watch the street outside the front windows, but there were too many signs taped to the dirty glass. “I can see where he'd be frustrated, even disgusted. But to work for someone like that? To intimidate others? That doesn't sound like Bill.”

“Call it disgust, disillusion, principles betrayed.” Forbes shrugged. “As far as he was concerned, no one at the Bureau really cared about justice. It was all about the rules. The law. And, yeah, I think he wanted money and power, too. No one flips sides like a believer who loses his belief.”

“And that's okay with you?”

“It's not okay, and it's not not-okay. It's what Bill wants, and I don't ask questions. He's my man regardless.”

Smith considered everything. His position was similar to what Bill's had been. Instead of the Bureau, it was the army that was betraying Smith, and how far from going rogue was he right now? In the Pentagon's eyes, he probably already was rogue. Certainly AWOL. Was he the one to judge Bill? Was this FBI man a better friend of Smith's old friend than was Smith?

Moral actions were not always as absolute as we liked to think.

“You don't know where he is? Or who the man he's working for, or with, is?”

Forbes said, “I don't know where he is, or if he's even working for the same guy. It's only a hunch, and I never knew who the guy was.”

“But you can get in touch with Bill?”

Forbes's eyes blinked slowly. “Let's say I can. What would you want me to say?”

Smith had already worked that out. “That I took the warning. That I survived, but they murdered Sophia. That I know they have the virus. But I don't know what they're planning, and I need to talk to him.”

Forbes studied the big soldier-scientist. The FBI had been briefed days ago on the worrisome situation with the unknown virus, including the death of Dr. Sophia Russell. Then an army memo had arrived this morning declaring Smith AWOL, a danger to the integrity of the investigation, the facts of which had been declared top secret by the White House. It asked the Bureau to look for Smith and, if they found him, to return him to Fort Detrick under guard.

But a lifetime of learning to assess people, sometimes in a matter of seconds with his life hanging on the outcome, had made Forbes trust himself. Smith was not the enemy. If anything threatened the integrity of the investigation, it was the paranoid order that took the scientific investigators out of the field. The Pentagon didn't want any more headlines about bacteriological warfare agents and our soldiers' possible exposure during Desert Storm. They were covering their sedentary butts as usual.

“If I can contact him, I'll give him your message, Colonel.” Forbes stood up. “A tip. Be careful who you talk to, and watch your back, whatever you plan to do. There's an arrest order out for you ― AWOL and a fugitive. Don't try to contact me again.”

Smith's chest contracted as he listened to the news. He was not surprised, but the confirmation was still a blow. He felt betrayed and violated, but that was the pattern since he had returned from London. First he had lost Sophia, and now he was losing his profession, his career. It stuck in his throat like broken glass.

As the FBI man walked to the door, Smith glanced around the café with its scattering of patrons bent over their exotic coffees and teas. He looked up just in time to see Forbes push through the doorway and scan the bustling street with a long-accustomed eye. Then he was gone, vanishing like the steam from his coffee. Smith put money on the table and slipped out the back door. He saw no one suspicious outside and no dark sedans parked with people in them. His pulse beating a wary tattoo, he walked away briskly toward the distant Woodley Metro station.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

At Dupont Circle, Smith left the Metro. The morning sun radiated down bright and warm on the thick traffic as it circled the park. He glanced casually around and began to walk, joining the throngs of business and government people taking early coffee breaks. His gaze constantly moved as he headed off through the maze of streets that hosted cafés, cocktail lounges, bookstores, and boutiques. The shops here were snore upscale than in Adams-Morgan, and even though it was October, tourists were pulling out their billfolds to make purchases.

Several times as he examined faces, he had bittersweet feelings of deja vu, and for a few exciting moments it seemed as if he had just caught sight of Sophia…

She was not dead.

She was alive and vital. Just a few steps away.

There was one brunette who had the same swinging, sexy gait. He had to fight himself from rushing past so he could turn and stare. Another woman had her long blond hair pulled back in the same kind of loose ponytail that Sophia always wore to keep her hair from her face when she worked. Then there was the woman who breezed past leaving a scent so much like Sophia's that his stomach knotted with anguish.

He had to get over this, he told himself sternly.

He had work to do. Crucial work that would give some meaning to Sophia's tragic death.

He inhaled and kept at it. He made himself watch all around for tails. He walked north up Massachusetts Avenue toward Sheridan Circle and Embassy Row. Halfway to Sheridan, he made one last move to assure himself that he had left behind any surveillance: He stepped quickly into the main entrance of the just-opened Phillips Collection, hurried through empty rooms of remarkable Renoirs and Cezannes, provocative Rothkos and O'Keeffes, and slipped out a side fire door. He paused, leaned back against the building, and studied pedestrians and cars.

At last he was satisfied. No one was watching him. If there had been a tail, he had lost him or her. So he hurried back to Massachusetts Avenue and his Triumph parked on a side street.

After hearing the telecast last night about Kielburger, Melanie Curtis, and the AWOL charge against him, he had intensified these evasive maneuvers. Before dawn he had awakened in Gaithersburg on the inner alarm of all combat surgeons in the field. He had been drenched in a cold, sad sweat following a night of dreaming about Sophia. He forced himself to eat a solid breakfast, and he studied the morning traffic as it increased on the highway and the traffic helicopters that monitored it. Showered, shaved, and determined, he was on the road by seven.

He had called Special Agent Forbes from a pay phone and driven across the Potomac into Washington. He had cruised around for a time before parking the Triumph off Embassy Row and hopping on the Metro to meet Forbes.

After retrieving the Triumph, he drove sedately to a busy residential street between Dupont and Washington Circles where a prominent sign marked the entrance to a narrow driveway bordered by a high, unruly hedge: PRIVATE PROPERTY — KEEP OUT! Beneath it hung smaller signs: NO TRESPASSING. NO SALESMEN. NO SOLICITING. NO COLLECTORS. GO AWAY!

Smith ignored the signs and pulled into the driveway. There was a small white clapboard bungalow with black trim hidden behind the hedge. He parked in front of a brick walk that led from the drive to the front door.

As soon as he stepped out, a mechanical voice announced: “Halt! State your name and purpose of visit. Failure to do so within five seconds will result in defensive measures.” The deep voice appeared to emanate from the sky with the authority of the heavens.

Smith grinned. The bungalow owner was an electronic genius, and the driveway surface was booby-trapped with a catalog of nasty discomforts, from a cloud of eye-stinging gas to a mercaptan spray that bathed victims in a foul stench. The owner ― Smith's old friend Marty Zellerbach ― had been hauled into court a few times many years ago by irate salesmen, meter readers, postal officials, and delivery people.

But Marty had two Ph.D.s, and he always appeared mild and responsible, if a little naive. That he was also extremely wealthy and bought the best defense attorneys did not hurt. Their arguments were passionate and convincing: His victims could not have missed his signs. They had to know they were trespassing. They had been asked to perform a perfectly reasonable act of identification by a disabled man who lived alone. And they had been warned.

His security, while annoying, was neither lethal nor seriously injurious. He had always won his cases, and after a few times the police gave up charging him and advised complainants to settle for compensation and quit trespassing.

“Come on, Marty,” Smith said, amused, “it's your old pal, Jonathan Smith.”

There was a surprised hesitation. Then: “Approach the front door using the brick path. Do not step off the path. That would activate further defensive measures.” The stilted voice disappeared, and suddenly the words were concerned. “Careful, Jon. I wouldn't want you to end up stinking like a skunk.”

Smith took the route Marty described. Invisible laser beams swept the entire property. A footstep off the path, or intrusion from anywhere else, would activate God-knew-what.

He climbed to the covered porch. “Call off the watchdogs, Marty. I've arrived. Open the door.”

From somewhere inside, the voice coaxed, “You have to follow the rules, Jon.” Instantly the disembodied voice returned: “Stand in front of the door. Open the box to the right and place your left hand on the glass.”

“Oh, please.” But Smith smiled.

A pair of ominous metal covers over the door slid up to reveal dark tubes that could contain anything from paint guns to rocket launchers. Marty had always found childlike glee in ideas and games most people left behind at adolescence. But Smith gamely stood in front of the door, opened the metal box, and rested his hand on the glass plate. He knew the routine: A video camera snapped a digital photo of his face, and instantly Marty's supercomputer would convert the facial measurements into a series of numerical values. At the same time, the glass plate recorded Smith's palm print. Then the computer compared the collected data to the bar codes it kept on file for everyone Marty knew.

The wooden voice announced: “You are Lt. Col. Jonathan Jackson Smith. Therefore, you may enter.”

“Thanks, Marty,” he said dryly. “I've been wondering who in the hell I was.”

“Very funny, Jon.”

A series of dramatic clicks, clanks, and thuds followed, and the woodcovered steel door swung open on a creaky track. Maintenance was not one of Marty's top priorities, but theatricality was. Smith stepped inside what was a traditional foyer except for one imposing detail ― his progress was stopped by a walk-in metal cage. As the front door automatically closed behind, Smith waited, trapped by jail-like bars.

“Hi, Jon.” Marty's high, slow, precise voice welcomed him from beyond the foyer. As the cage's gate clicked open, Marty appeared in a doorway to the side. “Come in, please.” His eyes twinkled with devilment.

He was a small, rotund man who walked awkwardly, as if he had never really learned how to move his legs. Smith followed him into an enormous computer room in a state of utter disorder and neglect. A formidable Cray mainframe and other computer equipment of every possible description filled all wall space and most of the floor, and what furniture there was looked like Salvation Army discards. Steel cages enclosed the draped windows.

As Marty's right hand flopped aimlessly, he held out his left for Smith to shake, while his brilliant green eyes looked away at the left wall of computer equipment.

Smith said, “It's been a while, Marty. It's good to see you.”

“Thanks. Me, too.” He smiled shyly, and his green eyes made glittering contact and then skittered away again.

“Are you on your medication, Marty?”

“Oh, yes.” He did not sound happy about that. “Sit down, Jon. You want some coffee and a cookie?”

Martin Joseph Zellerbach ― Ph.D. D.Litt. (Cantab) ― had been a patient of Smith's Uncle Ted, a clinical psychiatrist, since Smith and Marty were in grammar school together. Far better adjusted and socially mature, Smith had taken Marty under his wing, protecting him from the cruel teasing of other children and even some teachers. Marty was not stupid. In fact, he had tested at the genius level since the age of five, and Smith had always found him funny, nice, and intellectually stimulating. With the years, Marty had grown even more intelligent ― and more isolated. In school, he ran academic circles around everyone, but he had no concept of ― or interest in ― other people and the relationships so important to preteens and teens.

He obsessed on one arcane curiosity after another and lectured at great length. He knew all the answers in many of his courses, so to relieve his boredom he would disrupt his classes with his wild and dazzling fantasies and manias. No one could believe anyone as smart as Marty was not being intentionally rude and a troublemaker, so teachers frequently sent him to the principal's office. In later years, Smith had to fight a number of enraged boys who thought Marty was “dissing” them or their girlfriends.

All of this unusual behavior was the result of Asperger's syndrome, a rare disorder at the less severe end of the autism spectrum. Diagnosed in childhood with everything from “a dash of autism” to obsessive compulsive disorder and high-functioning autism, Marty was finally diagnosed accurately by Smith's Uncle Ted. Marty's key symptoms were consuming obsessions, high intelligence, crippling lack of social and communications skills, and outstanding talent in a specific area ― electronics.

On the milder end, Asperger sufferers were often described as “active but odd” or “autistic-eccentric.” But Marty had a slightly more severe case, and despite specialists' attempts to socialize him, except for the few brief trips to court years ago, he had not left this bungalow ― which he had carefully and lovingly created as part electronic paradise and part haven for his eccentricities ― in fifteen years.

There was no cure, and the only help for people like Marty was medication, usually central nervous system stimulants like Adderall, Ritalin, Cylert, or the new one Marty took ― Mideral. As with schizophrenia, the medicines allowed Marty to function with both feet firmly planted on the earth. They restrained his fantasies, enthusiasms, and obsessions. Although he hated them, he took them when he knew he had to do “normal” activities such as pay bills or when his Asperger's was threatening to spin him completely out of control.

But when medicated, Marty said everything was dull and flat and distant, and much of his genius and creativity was lost. So he had eagerly embraced the new medicine that acted fast to calm him, as most did, but whose effects lasted only six hours at most, which meant a dose could be taken more frequently. Living sealed off from the world in his bungalow, he could be off his meds more than most Asperger's sufferers could.

If you needed a computer genius to do creative, maybe illegal, hacking, you wanted Marty Zellerbach off his meds. It was then up to you to keep him on track and to know when it was time to bring him back to earth if he threatened to fly off into an orbit of his own.

Which was why Smith was here.

“Marty, I need help.”

“Of course, Jon.” Marty smiled, a stained coffee mug in his hand. “It's almost time for a new dose of meds. I'll stay off.”

“I was hoping you'd say that.” Smith explained about the report from the Prince Leopold Institute in Belgium that did not appear to exist. About the outside phone calls Sophia could have made or received, yet the records were gone. About his need for any information relating to the unknown virus anywhere in the world. “A couple of other things, too. I want to find Bill Griffin. You remember him from school.” And finally he described his tracking the three virus victims to the Gulf War and the MASH unit. “See if you can find anything about the virus in Iraq as far back as ten years ago.”

Marty put down his mug and made a beeline for his mainframe. He flashed an enthusiastic smile. “I'll use my new programs.”

Smith stood. “I'll be back in an hour or so.”

“All right.” Marty rubbed his hands together. “This is going to be fun.”

Smith left him working his sluggish, awkward fingers on the keyboard. The meds would wear off soon, and then, Smith knew, the fingers and the brain would fly until they came close to spiraling off the earth entirely, and Marty would have to take his Mideral again.

Outside, Smith walked quickly to his Triumph. As traffic drove noisily past, he did not notice a helicopter pause high overhead and then speed on, making a long loop to the left to parallel him as he drove toward Massachusetts Avenue.

The noise of the rotors and wind through the open window of the Bell JetRanger vibrated the chopper. Nadal al-Hassan cupped a microphone close to his mouth. “Maddux? Smith has visited a bungalow near Dupont Circle.” He located the bungalow on a city map and described the hidden driveway and high hedge. “Find out who lives there and what Smith wanted.”

He clicked off his microphone and stared down at the old, classic Triumph below as it headed toward Georgetown. For the first time, al-Hassan felt uneasy. It was not a feeling he would communicate to Tremont, but as a result he would stay close to this Smith. Bill Griffin, even if he were to be trusted, might not be enough to end the threat.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Bill Griffin had been briefly married, and Smith had met the woman twice back before the couple was even engaged. Both times they had been happily out on the town, hitting the noisy New York bars Bill frequented in his army days. Bill did a lot of loud bars then, perhaps because his life was spent in remote foreign locations where every step could be his last and every sound was an enemy. Smith knew almost nothing about the woman or the marriage, except that it had lasted less than two years. He had heard she still lived in the same Georgetown apartment she had shared with Bill. If Bill was in danger, he might have holed up there, where few people would know to look.

It was a long shot, but aside from Marty, he had few options.

When he reached her apartment house, he used his cell phone to call her.

She answered promptly and efficiently. “Marjorie Griffin.”

“Ms. Griffin, you won't remember me, but this is Jonathan Smith, Bill's―”

“I remember you, Captain Smith. Or is it major or colonel by now?”

“I'm not sure what it is, and it doesn't matter anyway, but it was lieutenant colonel yesterday. I see you kept Bill's name.”

“I loved Bill, Colonel Smith. Unfortunately for me, He loved his work more. But you didn't call to inquire about my marriage or divorce. You're looking for Bill, right?”

He was wary. “Well―”

“It's all right. He said you might call.”

“You've seen him?”

There was a pause. “Where are you?”

“In front of your building. The Triumph.”

“I'll come down.”

In the large, chaotic room crammed with computer terminals, monitors, and circuit boards, Marty Zellerbach leaned forward, concentrating. Torn printouts were stacked in messy piles near his chair. A radio receiver emitted low static as it eavesdropped on the squeals and beeps of data transmissions. The drapes were closed, and the air was cool and dry, almost claustrophobic, which was good for Marty's equipment and the way he liked it. He was smiling. He had used Jon Smith's codes to connect with the USAMRIID computer system and enter the server. Now the real action began. He felt a deep thrill as he scrolled through the various directories until he found the system administrator's password file. He gave a little laugh of derision. The data was scrambled.

He exited and found the file that revealed that the USAMRIID server used Popcorn ― one of the latest encryptors. He nodded, pleased. It was first-rate software, which meant the lab was in good hands.

Except that they had not counted on Marty Zellerbach. Using a program he had invented, he configured his computer to search for the password by scrambling every word from Webster's Unabridged plus the dialogue of all four Star Wars movies, the Star Trek television series and feature movies, Monty Python's Flying Circus, and every J. R. R. Tolkien novel ― all favorites of cybertechs.

Marty jumped up and paced. He grabbed his hands behind his back, and in his weaving gait he moved around the room as if it were a ship on the high seas and he its pirate captain. His program was incredibly fast. Still, like other mortals, he had to wait. Today the best hackers and crackers could steal most passwords, penetrate even the Pentagon's computers, and ride like Old West outlaws through the worldwide Internet. Even a novice could buy software that enabled him to invade and attack Web sites. For that reason, major corporations and government agencies continually heightened their security. As a result, Marty now wrote his own programs and developed his own scanners to find system weaknesses and to break through the firewalls that would stop others.

Suddenly he heard his computer ring the tones of the doorbell from the old Leave It to Beaver television show. Ding-dong-ding. With a chuckle, he rushed back to his chair, swiveled to face the monitor, and crowed. The password was his. It was not terribly imaginative ― Betazoid, named for the extrasensory natives of the Star Trek planet called Beta. He had not had to use his more sophisticated password cracker, which included a number randomizer and avoided all real words. With the system administrator's password file, he acquired the system's internal IP ― Internet Protocol ― address as well. Now he had the blueprint to USAMRIID's computer network, and soon he was “root,” too, which meant he had access to every file and could change and delete and trace all data. He was God.

For him, what Jon Smith had asked was not child's play, but it was not climbing Mount Everest either. Quickly Marty scanned all the E-mail messages from the Prince Leopold Institute, but each reported failure to find a match for the new virus. Those files were not what Jon wanted. To most people's eyes, if there was anything else from the lab, it had been completely erased. Gone forever. They would give up now.

Instead, Marty sent another search program to look in the spaces and cracks between data. As more data was inputted onto a system, the new overwrote the old, and once data was overwritten, it supposedly was not retrievable. When his program could find no evidence of any other E-mail from the Belgium lab, Marty figured that was probably what had happened in this case.

He threw back his head and stretched his arms high to the ceiling. His medication had worn off. A thrill rushed through him as his brain seemed to acquire diamondlike clarity. He looked down, and his fingers flew over the keyboard in a race to keep up with his thoughts. He instructed his program to do a different search, this time focusing on bits of the name, E-mail address, and other identifying qualities. With incredible speed, the program searched… and there it was ― two tiny pieces of the laboratory's name ― opold Inst.

With a shout, he followed the E-mail's footprints ― traces of data and numbers, almost a scent to Marty ― to NIH's Federal Resource Medical Clearing House and a terminal accessed only by the password of the director, Lily Lowenstein. From there, he painstakingly tracked the prints forward to the Prince Leopold Institute itself.

His green eyes flashed as he bellowed: “There you are, you frumious beast!” It was a reference to Lewis Carroll and the Jabberwock. In a hidden backup file buried deep within the institute's system language he had located an actual copy of the report.

The report had been E-mailed from the Prince Leopold Institute of Tropical Medicine to Level Four labs across the world. After a quick glance, it was evident Jon might find this useful. That decided, Marty tried to trace the E-mail elsewhere. He frowned as the evidence mounted: Someone had erased it not only from its origination site in the central computer of the Prince Leopold Institute but also at the addresses of the various recipients. Or that was what was supposed to have happened. And that was what the average computer nerd, the ordinary hacker, even most electronic security experts would have found.

But not Marty Zellerbach. They came to him ― the other cyberspace wizards ― for solutions to problems not yet seen and for insights into what had never been done. He had no titles ― beyond his Ph.D.s in quantum physics and mathematics and his degree in literature ― and he worked for no one but himself. Like a whale trapped on land, in the physical world he flopped and gasped and was an object of pity or derision, but deep in the electronic waters of the cyberocean, he slid sleek and powerful. There he was king ― Neptune ― and lesser mortals paid homage.

Laughing happily, he flourished his finger like a duelist's sword and jumped to his feet. He punched the print command. As he spun a lopsided pirouette, the machine spat out the report. For Marty, there was nothing quite so satisfying as doing something no one else could. It was small recompense for a life lived alone, and in his quiet moments he occasionally considered that.

But in the end… the truth was he looked down upon the leadfooted, numb-headed folks who judged him while living “ordinary” lives and having “relationships.” Good grief, despite his Asperger's syndrome, despite his need for drugs, he figured in the last fifteen years of seldom venturing beyond the walls of his bungalow, he had had more relationships than most people in a lifetime. What in heaven's name did the idiots out there think he had been doing? Geesh. What did they think E-mail was for? Dumb!

Grabbing the report, he waved it aloft like the head of a slain enemy. “Monster virus, none can defeat the paladin. And I am The Paladin! Victory is mine!”

A half hour later, footprints from the same FRMC terminal led him straight into the antiquated electronic network of the Iraqi government and to a series of reports a year ago concerning an outbreak of ARDS. He printed out those, too, and continued to prowl through the Iraqi cybersystem searching for reports of anything like the virus as far back as Desert Storm. But there was nothing else to find.

Sophia Russell's telephone records were a tougher challenge. He found no intruder footprints in the Frederick phone system. If there had been a record of an unaccounted-for call from Sophia Russell's line to an outside destination, it had been erased from inside the company and every trace removed.

All attempts to find Bill Griffin through college, medical, social security, or any other private or public part of his past had turned up the same message: Address unknown. So Marty launched into the FBI system, which he had penetrated so often his computer could almost do it on its own. His time was limited before they would trace him, because their Intruder Detection System (IDS) was one of the best. He popped in long enough to see that Griffin's official record showed termination for cause. If there were any secret arrangements, Marty found none ― no clandestine reports, no pay vouchers, no code passwords, and nothing else to indicate Griffin was undercover. However, the record was flagged, and there was a notation: Griffin's listed address was no longer valid, the Bureau had no current address, and one should be obtained.

Boy, Griffin was really something. Even the FBI wondered where he was.

Far tougher than the FBI's firewall and IDS was the army intelligence system. Once Marty breached the firewall, he had to dash in, read the personnel file, and dash out. He found no current address. Marty scratched his head and pursed his lips. It seemed to him Griffin had not only wanted to vanish, but he had had the expertise to do it. Shocking.

That deserved some respect. Even though Marty had never personally liked Griffin, he had to hand it to him now. So he sat back, crossed his arms, and smiled, not touching his computer for a full thirty agonizing seconds. It was his way of giving the guy some respect.

Then with a flourish he opened a blank file dedicated to Bill Griffin himself. He was not accustomed to failure in the cyberworld, and it both annoyed and inspired him. Bill Griffin had blown him away. But this was not the end. It was the beginning! There was nothing quite so delicious as a new challenge from a worthy opponent, and Griffin was proving to be just that. So Marty grinned. He scratched his chin and willed his brain to leap into the stratosphere. To find a solution in his soaring imagination. That was what he could do off his meds ― take flight.

But just as an idea began to form, he jumped, startled. His computer radiated a high-pitched tone and flashed a dazzling red signal:

More excited than nervous, Marty pressed a key. This could be amusing. The screen revealed:

Eagerly he tapped a button, and two high-resolution monitors came to life on the wall above. At Location A, which was behind the bungalow, two men searched for a way to squeeze through the thick hedge. But it was too dense to be penetrated and too high to climb over. Marty watched their feeble attempts and hooted.

But Location X was another matter. He swallowed hard and stared: An unmarked gray van had stopped in his hidden driveway. Two muscled strangers stepped from it, both holding large semi-automatic pistols as their gazes swept his property. With a jolt of terror, Marty's catalog brain identified one gun as an old Colt.45 1911, while the other was a l0mm Browning of the type used now by the FBI. These intruders were not going to be easily scared off.

Marty's short, stubby body shuddered. He hated strangers and violence of any kind. His round face, so bright and excited seconds ago, was now pale and trembling. He studied the screen as the mechanical voice challenged the men in the front yard.

Just as he suspected, they decided to ignore the warning. They ran toward the front steps ― an assault.

In an instant, Marty's mood improved. At least he could have fun for a little while. He snapped his fingers and bounced up and down in his chair as his automatic security system released a cloud of eye-stinging gas. The two men grabbed their faces. They jumped back, coughing and swearing.

Marty laughed. “Next time, listen when someone gives you good advice!”

In the rear, the second pair of strangers had stacked garbage cans from the neighbor's yard to climb up over the hedge. Marty watched intently. At just the right moment… just as they reached the top of the hedge… he tapped a key.

A barrage of heavy rubber bullets knocked them off. They fell hard, flat onto their backs in the neighbor's yard.

Marty had time only to chuckle, because the two in front had recovered enough to stumble through the gas and reach the front door.

“Ah, the pièce de résistance!” Marty promised.

He watched eagerly as a stream of Mace from the ports over the door sent the men staggering and howling back again. He clapped his hands. The short, burly one who seemed to be the leader recovered enough to lurch for the doorknob.

Marty leaned forward eagerly. The knob held a stun device. It sent a shock into the guy's hand. He screamed and jumped.

Marty chortled and spun in his chair to check the other pair. The two in the backyard showed resourcefulness. They had rammed their car through the hedge and were on their feet and moving forward again, crawling under the sweep of lasers.

Marty grinned as he thought about what waited for them: stun devices in the other doors and windows, and cages that would trap them if they got inside.

But all the defenses, diabolical though they were, were not lethal. Marty was a nonviolent man who had never had reason to expect serious danger. His security was aimed at pranksters, trespassers, and tormenters ― against outsiders invading his peaceful isolation. He had constructed, invented, bought, and built a child's game of brilliant comic-strip mayhem and secret escape routes.

But none would, in the end, stop determined killers in a real world.

Clammy fear gripped his chest. His heart pounded. But being a genius had its advantages. He had designed a plan a dozen years ago for just this sort of emergency. He grabbed the remote control and the printouts for Jon, and then he rushed into the bathroom. He pressed a button on the remote, and the bathtub reared up against the wall. Another touch of the remote opened a trapdoor hidden under the tub. His chest tight with fear, he climbed down the ladder past the house's crawl space and into a well-lighted tunnel. With two clicks of his remote, the door closed above him and, out of his view, the tub lowered back into place.

Marty inhaled, relieved. In his rolling gait, he swayed and bumped along to another trapdoor overhead.

Seconds later he emerged in a nearly identical bungalow he also owned on the next street. This one was unmodified and empty. It was a deserted house with a perpetual FOR SALE sign and nothing in it except a telephone. Behind him, across the hedge between the bungalows, he could hear curses and yelps of pain. But he also heard the telltale noise of glass shattering, and he knew the attackers would soon be inside his house, searching for his escape route.

Afraid, he grabbed the phone and dialed.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Georgetown University was founded by Jesuits in 1789, the first Roman Catholic university in the United States. Handsome eighteenth- and nineteenth-century buildings stood among the trees and cobbled lanes, reminders of a time when science knew little of viruses, but education was beginning to be seen as a solution to the violent problems of modern society. Through the window of Georgetown's faculty lounge, Smith thought about this as he admired the old campus under the big trees.

He said, “So you're on the faculty here?”

“Associate professor of history.” Marjorie Griffin shrugged sadly. “I suppose Bill never told you what I did. I was at NYU when we met. Then I applied down here.”

“He never talked much about his private life,” Smith admitted. “Mostly our work and shared past. The old days.”

Absentmindedly she stirred her tea. “The few times we saw each other recently, it wasn't even that much. Something's happened to Bill over the last few years. He's become silent, moody.”

“When did you last get together, Marjorie?”

“Twice in just the past few days. On Tuesday morning he appeared on my doorstep. And then again last night.” She drank tea. “He was nervous, edgy. He seemed worried about you. When he came inside, the first thing he did was go to the front windows and watch the street. I asked him what he was looking for, but he didn't answer. Suggested a cup of tea instead. He had brought a bag of croissants from the French bakery on M Street.”

“A spur-of-the-moment visit,” Smith guessed. “Why?”

Marjorie Griffin did not answer at once. Her face seemed to sag as she studied the parade of students outside the windows on the cobbled lane. “Touching base, maybe. I hate to think he was saying good-bye. But that could've been it.” She looked up at Smith. “I'd hoped you'd know.”

She was, Smith realized almost with a shock, a beautiful woman. Not like Sophia, no. A calm beauty. A certain serenity in herself and in who she was. Not passive, exactly, but not restlessly seeking either. She had dark gray eyes and black hair caught in a French knot at the nape of her neck. An easy style. Good cheekbones and a strong jawline. A body between thin and heavy. Smith felt a stirring, an attraction, and then it was gone. It died before it could do more than appear in a flash, unexpected and unwanted, immediately followed by a sharp stab of sorrow. A throb of anguish that was Sophia.

“Two days ago, almost three now,” he told her, “he warned me I was in danger.” He described the meeting in Rock Creek park, the attacks on him, the virus, and the death of Sophia. “Someone has the live virus, Marjorie, and they killed Sophia, Kielburger, and his secretary with it.”

“Good God.” Her fine face redrew itself in lines of horror.

“I don't know who or why, and they're trying to stop me from finding out. Bill's working with them.”

She covered her mouth with her hand. “No! That's not possible!”

“It's the only way he could've known to warn me. What I'm trying to figure out is whether he's undercover or with them on his own.” He hesitated. “His closest friend in the FBI says he isn't undercover.”

“Lonny Forbes. I always liked Lonny.” She pressed her lips together and shook her head sadly. “Bill's grown harder. More cynical. The last two times I saw him, something was really bothering him. It seemed to me it was about something he's not proud of but won't stop doing because of the way the world is.” She picked up her teacup, found it empty, and stared into it. “I'm just guessing about him, of course. I'll never marry again. I see a nice man now and then, but that's all it'll ever be. Bill was my great love. But his great love was his work, and somehow it failed him. What I do know is he feels betrayed. He's lost his faith, you could say.”

Smith understood. “In a world with no values except money, he wants his share. It's happened to others. Scientists who sell out for big bucks. Put a monetary value on eradicating disease, curing ills, saving lives. Unconscionable.”

“But he can't betray you,” Marjorie said. “So he's torn apart by the conflict.”

“He's already betrayed me. Sophia's dead.”

As she opened her mouth to protest, Smith's cell phone rang. Throughout the faculty lounge, annoyed heads turned.

Smith grabbed the phone from his pocket. “Yes?”

It was Marty, and he sounded both excited and terrified. “Jon, I always said the world was unsafe.” He paused and gasped. “Now I've proved it. Personally. There's a whole group of intruders. Well, four actually. They've broken into my house. If they find me, they'll kill me. This is your area of expertise. You've got to save me!”

Smith kept his voice low. “Where are you?”

“At my other house.” He gave the address. Suddenly his voice broke. It shook with terror. “Hurry!”

“I'm on my way.”

Smith apologized to Marjorie Griffin, scribbled his cell phone number for her, and asked her to call if Bill turned up again. He ran out of the lounge.

As Smith drove worriedly past Marty's house, he saw a gray van parked in the driveway. No one appeared to be in the van, and the high hedge and curtains hid the house's interior. He surveyed all around and saw nothing suspicious. There were the usual traffic noises. Smith scanned constantly for trouble as he continued on around the block and pulled into the driveway of a bungalow that was directly behind Marty's. In the front lawn stood a white metal FOR SALE sign rusting around the edges.

From the house's front window, a shade peeled upward, and Marty's frightened face peeked out just above the sill.

Smith ran to the front door.

Marty opened it, clutching a sheaf of papers and a remote control to his chest. “Come in. Hurry. Hurry.” He stared fearfully past. “If you were Florence Nightingale, I'd be dead by now. What took you so long?”

“If I were Florence Nightingale, I wouldn't be here. We'd be in different centuries.” Smith locked the door and scanned the empty room as Marty checked the front window. “Fill me in. Tell me everything that happened.”

Marty dropped the window shade and described the four strangers, their weapons, and their attempts to break in. Meanwhile, Smith strode through the house, checking locks on doors and windows, and Marty followed in his rolling gait. The drapes and curtains were drawn, and the rooms were shadowy with sunlight and dust motes. The place was empty, and as secure as any ordinary house could be. Which was not very.

At last Marty finished his story with a stream of speculations.

“You're right,” Smith said soberly, “they'll start searching the neighborhood soon.”

“Swell. Just what I wanted to hear.” Marty grinned weakly. It came out as a macabre grimace, but it was a brave try.

Smith squeezed his friend's shoulder, trying to keep the urgency from his voice. “How did they know about us, Marty? Did you tell anyone?”

“Not in a quadrillion years.”

“Then they had to have followed me, but I don't see how.” He quickly went through all the precautions he had taken to shake pursuit since he had left Frederick. “They couldn't have put a transmitter on the Triumph this time.”

That was when he heard it… a noise that rose above the ambient sounds of the city. At first he could not place it. Then he knew what it was, and how they had followed him. His throat tightened. He strode to the front window, raised the shade, and looked out and up.

“Damn!” He slammed his fist against the wall.

Marty joined him, staring up at the helicopter hovering low to the south on a straight line with the pair of bungalows. As they watched, it banked in a sweeping turn north and came back around toward the house where he and Marty hid. Smith remembered hearing a chopper earlier when he had driven away from Marty's house.

He cursed and slammed the wall again. That was the answer ― the Triumph. He knew he had shaken them before he pulled off the Interstate at Gaithersburg ― there had been no way they could have bugged the Triumph that time. But how many restored ― but battered from last night ― '68 Triumphs could there be in the area? Not many, and probably not another on the interstate from Frederick to Washington early this morning. One of those choppers he had seen while eating breakfast in Gaithersburg that he had thought was monitoring traffic could have easily been something else entirely. All they had had to do was guess he would go into Washington and watch the Interstate for a Triumph. A license check would confirm it.

Pick him up at Gaithersburg. Follow him into Washington.

His Triumph had nailed him. Dammit!

Marty's voice was severe. “Okay, Jon. We don't have time for your bouts of anger. Besides, I don't want any holes in my walls unless I put them there. Tell me what you've figured out. Maybe I can help.”

“No time. This is my area of expertise, right? You used to have a car. Do you still have it?” He had been falsely secure in his Triumph. Now his enemies would be falsely secure in relying on it to track him. Everyone had blind spots.

Marty nodded. “I keep it at a garage near Massachusetts Avenue. But Jon, you know I never go out anymore.” He wandered into the next room and looked nervously out the window. He still carried his remote and the sheaf of papers as if they were talismans against danger.

“You do now,” Smith told him firmly. “We're going to go out of here the front way, and―”

“J-J-Jon! Look!” Marty jabbed the remote like a pointer out the back window.

Instantly Smith was beside him, his Beretta in his hand. Two of the strangers had come through the hedge and now trotted toward the bungalow where Marty and Smith hid. The men were low to the ground, running with the careful urgency of men on the attack. And they were armed. Smith's pulse pounded. Beside him, Marty was rigid with fear. He put a hand on Marty's shoulder and squeezed as he crouched beside the window.

He let the pair get within fifteen feet. He slid up the window, aimed carefully, and fired the Beretta at each man's legs. His brain was rusty with years of inaction, but his muscle memory overcame the rust as smoothly as an oiled machine.

The two pitched forward onto their faces, moaning with pain and shock. As they crawled for the cover of a pair of old buckeye trees, Smith hurried to the living room.

“Come on, Marty.”

Marty followed close behind, and they both looked out the window. As Smith had feared, the second pair was in front. One was the same burly man who had led the ambush two days ago in Georgetown. They had heard the shots, and the burly man had dived to the grass and pulled a Glock from his jacket. He landed hard on his chest, but held on to the Glock. The other man's reaction was thirty seconds too slow. He still stood on the brick path, his big old U.S. Army Colt.45 halfway up toward the house.

Smith missed his leg. But before the man could stumble back for the safety of the street, Smith's second shot drew blood from his shoulder and sent him sprawling.

Marty watched worriedly. “Good shooting, Jon.”

Smith thought fast. His unexpected shots had put the two in the backyard out of action. But in the front, the leader was uninjured, and the second man had been only nicked. They would be careful now that they knew they faced lethal opposition, but they would not go away.

And the helicopter would send reinforcements.

His voice tense, Smith asked quickly, “Does your tunnel work from this end?”

Marty looked up. He nodded, understanding. “Yes, Jon. It'd be illogical if it didn't.”

“Let's go!”

In the bedroom, Marty pressed his remote control. The box bed swung silently out of the way, exposing the trapdoor. Another electronic command opened it.

“Follow me.” Holding his papers and the remote tightly, Marty slid into the brightly lighted shaft with its ladder that went through a crawl space and down into the concrete underground tunnel. As soon as he landed, he lurched out of the way.

A few seconds later, Smith's feet touched down next to him. “Impressive, Mart.”

“Useful, too.” He pressed a button on his remote. “This closes the trapdoor and puts everything back the way it was.”

The two moved quickly along the bright tunnel. Finally they reached the other end, and Smith insisted on going up first. As he emerged into the small bathroom of Marty's home bungalow, he had a shock: A fifth man was crossing the hall into the living room.

Smith's pulse hammered. He listened. Then he realized the man was heading toward the bathroom.

He dropped back into the shaft. “Close it up!”

His round face anxious, Marty electronically closed the trap and lowered the bathtub. Seconds later they heard the man enter the bathroom, followed by the sound of a stream falling into the toilet.

Smith quietly told Marty what he wanted him to do.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Beretta ready, Smith climbed up to wait on the top rung of the metal ladder. He took a deep breath as the trapdoor unlocked. But it was still weighted in place by the tub. As he raised his Beretta, the tub swung up against the wall, the trap sprang open, and the entire bathroom plus a section of the hall and living room came into view. Smith repressed a grim smile. The situation was better than he had hoped.

Ahead was the back of the man at the toilet. The guy's jaw dropped. Staring into the mirror, he had seen the bathtub rise like a white apparition into the air behind. The guy was not only stunned, he was exposed. He did not even have time to zip.

But he was a professional. So, fly hanging open, he grabbed his weapon from where he had laid it on top of the toilet tank and spun around.

“Good. But not good enough.” With a mighty swing, Smith slammed his Beretta into the man's knee. He heard bone crack. The man dropped to the floor, groaning and clutching the knee. His weapon skidded toward the door.

Smith leaped up through the trap, snatched the gun, and grabbed the walkie-talkie from the back of the toilet tank. Now the man could not shoot or call for help.

“Hey!” the man bellowed. Pain stretched his narrow face. He tried to get up, but the crushed knee shot disabling pain, and he fell back onto the floor.

“Oh, my,” Marty said as he clambered out. He hurried past him and into the hallway.

Smith followed, locking the bathroom door.

Marty wondered, “You didn't shoot him?”

He pushed Marty forward. “I crippled him. That was enough. It'll take three or four operations to repair that knee. The way he is, he can't hurt us and he's not going anyplace. Come on, Mart. We've really got to move.”

As they crossed Marty's computer-filled office, he stopped for a moment, his face forlorn. He sighed, then he followed Smith to the frontdoor cage, which had been shot open.

Smith cracked open the front door and peered out. The gray van still stood in the driveway. He was tempted to hot-wire it, a skill he had learned from Bill Griffin as a teenager, but the helicopter still swung back and forth over the bungalows.

“Mart, we're going to Massachusetts Avenue and your car. Grab your meds.”

“I don't like this.” Marty stumbled back to his desk, picked up a small black leather case, and returned to Smith at the front door. “I don't like this at all.” He shuddered. “The world is full of strangers!”

Smith ignored his complaints. Marty might fear people he did not know, but Jon figured he was far more afraid of dying. “Stay close to buildings, walk under trees, anything to hide. No running ― that'd attract attention. With luck, the chopper up there won't spot us. If it does, we'll have to lose it when we reach your car. To be safe, I'm going to try to disable the van out there.”

Marty suddenly raised a finger. He grinned from ear to ear. “I can handle that!”

“From here? How?”

“I'll fry its computer.”

Smith never doubted Marty where electronics were concerned. “Okay. Let's see you do it.”

Marty hunted in his desk drawers and produced a leather case about the size of a large camera. He aimed an aperture through the front doorway at the side at the van. He opened the lid, twirled some dials, and punched a button. “That should do it.”

Smith stared suspiciously. “I didn't see anything happen.”

“Of course you didn't. I used TED to destroy the on-board computer that controls engine functions.”

“What the hell is TED?”

“Transient electromagnetic device. It works on RF ― radio frequency. Think of static electricity, but stronger. I built this one myself and made it even more powerful than the usual. But the Russians will sell you an industrial-strength one. It comes in a briefcase and costs a hundred thousand dollars or so.”

Jon was impressed. “Bring that thing along.” He stepped outdoors. “Let's go.”

Marty stood motionless just outside his doorway. He stared, stunned at the blue sky and green grass and moving traffic. He looked overwhelmed. “It's been a long time,” he murmured and shivered.

“You can do it,” Smith encouraged.

Marty swallowed and nodded. “Okay. I'm ready.”

Smith in the lead, they ran from the porch and along the high hedge to where it joined the side hedge. Jon pushed through, and Marty followed. At the street, he stepped out and linked his arm with Marty's. They were just two convivial friends strolling along toward the avenue two blocks ahead.

Behind them the helicopter hung over the pair of bungalows. Busy Massachusetts Avenue was ahead. Once there, Smith hoped they could disappear among the throng of pedestrians flocking to the magnificence of Embassy Row and the other historic buildings and institutions between Dupont and Sheridan Circles.

They did not make it. As they reached the second block, the chopper roared closer. Smith glanced over his shoulder. The helicopter was sweeping toward them.

“Oh, my.” Marty saw it, too.

“Faster!” Smith ordered.

They ran down the side street, the helicopter following so low it was in danger of trimming the trees. The draft from the mighty blades blasted their backs. Then shots exploded from the chopper. Marty gave a little scream. Bullets kicked dirt and concrete around them and whined off into the air.

Smith grabbed his arm and shouted, “Keep running!”

They pounded on, Marty flailing like a combination of robot and rag doll. The helicopter passed over and battled to bank and come back.

“Faster!” Smith was sweating. He pulled on Marty's arm.

The helicopter had completed its turn and started back.

But then Smith exulted. “It's going to be too late!” They tore onto Massachusetts Avenue and plunged in among the crowds. It was Friday afternoon, and people were returning from long lunches, making plans for the weekend, and heading toward appointments.

“Oh, oh.” Marty cringed against Smith, but he kept walking. His round head swiveled, and his eyes were huge as he took in the multitude.

“You're doing great,” Smith assured him. “I know it's tough, but we're safe for a while here. Where's your car?”

Panting nervously, Marty told him, “Next side street.”

Smith looked up at the helicopter that had made its turn and was now hovering over the crowds and moving ahead slowly, trying to single them out. He studied Marty in his customary tan windbreaker over a blue shirt and baggy chinos.

“Take off your windbreaker and tie it around your waist.”

“Okay. But they still could spot us. Then they'll shoot us.”

“We're going to be invisible.” He was lying, but under the circumstances it seemed the wisest course. Hiding his worry, he unbuttoned his uniform blouse and slipped out of it as they hurried along. He wrapped it around his garrison cap and tucked the bundle under his arm. It was not much of a disguise, but to eyes searching from a helicopter for two people in a crowd below, it might be enough.

They walked another block, the chopper closing in on them. Smith looked over at Marty, whose round face was miserable and sweating. But he offered a forced smile. Smith smiled back, even though he pulsed with tension.

The helicopter was closer. Suddenly it was almost above them.

Marty's voice was excited. “This is it! I recognize the street. Turn here!”

Smith watched the chopper. “Not yet. Pretend to tie your shoelace.” Marty squatted and fussed at his tennis shoes. Smith bent and brushed at his trousers as if he had gotten dirt on them. People hurried past. A few threw annoyed glances at them for impeding the flow.

The helicopter passed over.

“Now.” Smith pushed through the crowd first, creating a path for Marty. In a dozen feet, they were on a narrow side street that resembled an alley. Marty led him to a three-story, yellow-brick building marked by a wide garage door. There was an attendant's kiosk, but no cars were going in or out. Smith did not like the flat roof. The chopper could land up there.

Marty presented his identification to a stunned attendant who had clearly never laid eyes on the owner of the vehicle in question. “How long you taking it out for, Mr. Zellerbach?”

“We don't know for sure,” Smith told the man, saving Marty from having to talk to the stranger.

The attendant scoured the ownership papers once more and led them up to the second floor, where a row of stored cars waited under protective canvas covers.

When he whipped the cover off the next-to-the-last one, Smith stared. “A Rolls-Royce?”

“My father's.” Marty grinned shyly.

It was a thirty-year-old Silver Cloud, as gleaming as the day it had cruised out from under the hands of the long-forgotten craftsmen who built it. When the attendant started it up and rolled it carefully out from the row, its original Rolls-Royce engine purred so softly Smith was not sure it was actually running. There was not a squeak, squeal, knock, or rattle.

“There you are, Mr. Zellerbach,” the attendant said proudly. “She's our belle. Best car in the house. I'm glad to see she's going somewhere at last.”

Smith took the keys and told Marty to sit in the backseat. He left his uniform blouse off but put on his cap so he would look more like a chauffeur. Behind the wheel, he studied the dashboard instruments and gauges on the whorled wood and examined the controls. With a sense of awe, he slid the clutch into gear and drove the elegant machine out of storage and onto the side street. Almost anywhere in the nation the Rolls would stand out as glaringly as his Triumph. But not in New York, Los Angeles, or Washington. Here it was just one more expensive car carrying an ambassador, a foreign dignitary, an important official, or a CEO of some kind.

“Do you like it, Jon?” Marty asked from the backseat.

“It's like riding a magic carpet,” Smith said. “Beautiful.”

“That's why I kept it.” Marty gave a satisfied smile and leaned back like an overweight cat against the seat, comforted by the close walls of the car. He set his papers and his black medicine case beside him and gave a little chortle. “You know, Jon, that guy in the bathroom's going to tell the others about my escape route, but they're never going to figure out how to make it work.” He held up the remote control with a flourish. “Zounds! They're screwed!”

Smith laughed and glanced at the rearview mirror. The chopper circled helplessly a block away. He turned the grand machine onto Massachusetts Avenue. Inside the Silver Cloud, there was hardly a sound despite the heavy traffic.

He asked, “Are those papers printouts of what you were able to download?”

“Yes. I have good news, and I have bad news.”

Marty described his cybersearch as they passed Dupont Circle and glided north, through the city to I-95 and onto the Beltway. As Marty talked, Smith remained tense and alert for anyone following. He had the constant sense they could be attacked again from any point at any time.

Then he looked into the rearview mirror at Marty with amazement. “You really were able to find the report from the Prince Leopold?”

Marty nodded. “And virus reports from Iraq.”

“Amazing. Thank you. What about Bill Griffin and Sophia's phone records?”

“No. Sorry, Jon. I really tried.”

“I know you did. I'd better read what you've got.”

They were approaching the Connecticut Avenue exit at the extension of Rock Creek park in Maryland. Smith took the exit, drove into the park, and stopped the Rolls at a secluded meadow surrounded by a stand of thick trees. As Marty handed him the two printouts, he said, “They'd been deleted by the director of NIH's Federal Resource Medical Clearing House.”

“The government!” Smith swore. “Damn. Either someone in the government or army's behind what's happening, or the people who are have even more power than I'd thought.”

“That scares me, Jon,” Marty said.

“It scares me, and we better find out which it is soon.”

Muttering, he read the Prince Leopold report first.

Dr. Renée Giscours described a field report he had seen while doing a stint at a jungle hospital far upriver in Bolivian Amazonia years ago. He had been battling what appeared to be a new outbreak of Machupo fever and had no time to think about an unconfirmed rumor from far-off Peru. But the new virus jogged his memory, so he checked his papers and found his original note ― but not the actual report. His jottings to himself back then emphasized an unusual combination of hantavirus and hemorrhagic fever symptoms and some connection to monkeys.

Smith thought about it. What had caught Sophia's interest in this? There were few facts, nothing but the vague memory of an anecdote from the field. Was it the mention of Machupo? But Giscours made no special connection, did not suggest any link, and Machupo antibodies had shown no effect on the unknown virus. It did suggest the new unknown virus actually existed in nature, but researchers would assume that. Perhaps it was the mention of Bolivia. Maybe Peru. But why?

“Is it important?” Marty wanted to know, eager to help.

“I don't know yet. Let me read the rest.”

There were three more reports ― all from the Iraqi Minister of Health's office. The first two concerned three ARDS deaths a year ago in the Baghdad area that were unexplained but finally attributed to a hantavirus carried by desert mice drawn into the city by lack of food in the fields. The third reported three more ARDS cases in Basra who had survived. All three in Basra. Smith felt a chill. The exact same numbers had died and survived. Like a controlled experiment. Was that what the three American victims were, too, part of some experiment?

Plus there was the connection of the first three American victims to Desert Storm.

He felt a settling in his chest, as if now at last he had a clearer sense of direction. He had to go to Iraq. He needed to find out who had died and who had survived… and why.

“Marty, we're going to California. There's a man there who'll help us.”

“I don't fly.”

“You do now.”

“But, Jon―” Marty protested.

“Forget it, Marty. You're stuck with me. Besides, you know deep down you like doing crazy things. Consider this one of your craziest.”

“I don't believe thinking positively is enough in this case. I might freak out. Not that I'd want to, you understand. But even Alexander the Great had fits.”

“He had epilepsy. You have Asperger's, and you've got medication to control it.”

Marty froze. “Little problem there. I don't have my meds.”

“Didn't you bring your case?”

“Yes, of course I brought it. But I have only one dose left.”

“We'll have to get you more in California.” As Marty grimaced, Smith restarted the Rolls and pulled onto the Interstate. “We'll need money. The army, the FBI, probably the police, and the people with the virus will be monitoring my bank accounts, credits cards, the works. They won't be monitoring yours yet.”

“You're right. Since I value my life, I suppose I have to go along. At least for a while. Okay. Consider it a donation. Do you think fifty thousand dollars would be enough?”

Smith was stunned at the large sum. But when he thought about it, he realized money was meaningless to Marty. “Fifty thousand should do fine.”

Over the roar of the rotors and the slipstream wind, Nadal al-Hassan shouted into the phone, “We have lost them.” He wore dark sunglasses over his hatchet face. They seemed to absorb the sunlight like black holes.

In his office near the Adirondack lake, Victor Tremont swore. “Damn. Who is this Martin Zellerbach? Why did Smith go to him?”

Al-Hassan covered his open ear to hear better. “I will find out. What about the army and the FBI?”

“Smith's officially AWOL and connected to the deaths of Kielburger and the woman because he was the last to see them alive. Both the police and the army are looking for him.” The distant roar of the helicopter in his ear made him want to shout as if he were there with al-Hassan. “Jack McGraw's staying on top of the situation through his source in the Bureau.”

“That is good. Zellerbach's residence has much computer equipment. Very advanced. It is possible that is why Smith went there. Perhaps we could learn what he is looking for by analyzing what this Zellerbach was doing when we arrived.”

“I'll send Xavier to Washington. Have your people watch the hospitals where all the victims were treated, especially the three survivors. So far the government hasn't revealed the survivals, but they will. When Smith hears about them, he'll probably try to reach them.”

“I have already seen to it.”

“Good, Nadal. Where's Bill Griffin?”

“That I do not know. He has not reported in to me today.”

“Find him!”

CHAPTER TWENTY

Mercer Haldane, chairman of Blanchard Pharmaceuticals, Inc., could barely manage a smile as Mrs. Pendragon brought in the agenda for tomorrow's board meeting. Still, he bid her his customary cheerful goodnight. Safely alone again, he sat brooding in his white tie and tails. One of the quarterly dinners for the board was tonight, and he had an enormous problem that must be addressed first.

Haldane was proud of Blanchard, both of its history and its future. It was an old company, founded by Ezra and Elijah Blanchard in a garage in Buffalo in 1884 to make soap and face cream from their mother's original recipes. Owned and run by one or the other Blanchard, it had prospered and branched into fermentation products. During World War II, Blanchard was one of the few manufacturers selected to make penicillin, which elevated it to a pharmaceutical company. After the war, the company grew rapidly and went public with great fanfare in the 1960s. Twenty years later, in the early 1980s, the last Blanchard descendant handed over the operation of the company to Mercer Haldane. As CEO, Haldane ran Blanchard into the 1990s. Ten years ago, he had assumed the chairmanship as well. It was his company now.

Until two days ago, the future of Blanchard looked as rosy as its past. Victor Tremont had been his discovery, a brilliant biochemist with executive potential and creative flair. Haldane had nurtured Victor slowly, bringing him up through all the company's operations. He had been grooming Victor to succeed him. In fact, four years ago Haldane had promoted him to COO, even though he retained effective control. He knew Victor seethed under the constraint, that he was eager to run the company, but Haldane considered that a plus. Any man worth his salt wanted his own show, and a hungry man kept his competitive edge.

Tonight it was Mercer Haldane who seethed.

A year ago, a new auditor had reported accounting for research and development that seemed odd. The auditor was concerned, even nervous. It was impossible to follow funds for a project through to its conclusion. Haldane considered the man's worry nothing more than unfamiliarity with the intricacies of R&D in the pharmaceutical industry. But Haldane was also a cautious executive, so he had hired a second outside auditing firm to look more deeply.

The result was alarming. Two days ago, Haldane had received the report. In an intricate pattern of small, barely noticeable irregularities ― overruns, shortfalls, paper transfers, borrowings, excessive supply and repair costs, pilfering, and spillage and leakage losses ― almost a billion dollars appeared to be missing from the total R&D budget over a ten year period. A billion dollars! In addition, a similar sum appeared to have been applied to a phantom R&D program Haldane had never heard of. The paper trail was exceedingly complex, and the auditors admitted they could not be absolutely certain of their findings. But they also said they were sure enough that they believed they should be granted permission to continue digging.

Haldane thanked them, told them he would be in touch, and immediately thought of Victor Tremont. Not for a second did he believe a billion dollars could be lost through tiny pinpricks, or that Victor would steal such a sum. But it was possible his hungry second-in-command could order a secret research project and try to keep it hidden from Haldane. Yes, he would believe that.

He made no immediate move. Victor and he would meet in his New York office before the private dinner he gave for the board at the quarterly meeting. He would brace Victor with what he knew and demand an explanation. One way or another, he would discover whether any secret program existed. If it did, he would have to fire Victor. But the project might be worth saving. If there were no such program, and Victor could not explain the lost billion, he would fire him on the spot.

Haldane sighed. It was tragic about Victor, but at the same time he felt an eagerness that made his blood rush. He was getting on in years, but he still enjoyed a good fight. Especially one that he knew he would win.

At the sound of his private elevator coming up, he crossed the luxurious office with its view south over the entire city to the Battery and the bay. He poured a snifter of his best XO cognac and returned to his desk. He opened a humidor, selected a cigar, lighted it, and took the first long, savory draw as the elevator stopped and Victor Tremont stepped out in his white tie and tails.

Haldane turned his head. “Good evening, Victor. Pour yourself a brandy.”

Tremont eyed him where he sat behind the big desk smoking the cigar. “You're looking solemn tonight, Mercer. Some problem?”

“Get your brandy, and we'll discuss it.”

Tremont poured a snifter of the fine old cognac, helped himself to a cigar, sat in a comfortable leather armchair facing Haldane, and crossed his legs.

He smiled. “So, let's not waste our valuable time. I have a lady to pick up for the dinner. What have I done wrong?”

Haldane bristled. He was being challenged. He decided to be blunt and put Victor in his place. “It seems we have a billion dollars unaccounted for. What did you do, Victor ― steal it or divert it into some pet scheme?”

Tremont sipped his brandy, turned his cigar to study the ash, and nodded as if he had expected this. His long, aristocratic face was shadowy in the lamplight. “The secret audit. I thought that was probably it. Well, the simple answer is no… and yes. I didn't steal the money. I did divert it to a project all my own.”

Haldane controlled his anger. “How long has this been going on?”

“Oh, I'd say ten years or so. A couple of years after that specimen-finding trip to Peru you sent me on when I was working in the main research lab. Remember?”

“A decade! Impossible! You couldn't have fooled me that long. What really―”

“Oh, but I could, and I did. Not alone, of course. I put together a team inside the company. The best men we have. They saw the billions that could be made on my concept, and they signed on. A little creative bookkeeping here, help from security there, some fine scientists, my own outside laboratory, a lot of dedication, some cooperation inside our federal government and military, and voila! — the Hades Project. Conceived, planned, developed, and ready to go.” Victor Tremont smiled again and waved the cigar like a magic wand. “In a few weeks ― months at most ― my team and Blanchard will make billions. Possibly hundreds of billions. Everyone will be rich ― me, my team, the board, the stockholders… and, of course, you.”

Haldane held his cigar frozen in midair. “You're insane.”

Tremont laughed. “Hardly. Just a good businessman who saw an opportunity for gigantic profit.”

“Insane and going to prison!” Haldane snapped.

Tremont held up a hand. “Calm yourself, Mercer. Don't you want to know what the Hades Project is? Why it's going to make all of us filthy rich, including you, despite your lack of gratitude?”

Mercer Haldane hesitated. Tremont was admitting he had used company funds for secret research. He would have to be terminated and probably prosecuted. But he was also a fine chemist, and legally the project did belong to Blanchard. Perhaps it would make a large profit. After all, as chairman and CEO, it was his duty to protect and enhance the company's bottom line.

So Haldane cocked his white head. “I can't see how it can change anything, Victor, but what is this brilliant coup of yours?”

“When you sent me to Peru thirteen years ago, I found an odd virus in a remote area. It was deadly, fatal in most cases. But one tribe had a cure: They drank the blood of a specific species of monkey that also carried the disease. I was intrigued, so I brought home live virus from victims as well as various monkeys' blood. What I found was startling, but rather elegantly logical.”

Haldane stared. “Go on.”

Victor Tremont took a long drink of the cognac, smacked his lips in appreciation, and smiled over the top of the snifter at his boss. “The monkeys were infected by the same virus as the humans. But it's a strange one. The virus lies dormant for years inside its host, rather like the HIV virus before it becomes AIDS. Oh, a small fever perhaps, some headaches, other sudden and brief pains, but nothing lethal until, apparently spontaneously, it mutates, gives symptoms of a heavy cold or mild flu for two weeks or so, and then becomes lethal to both humans and monkeys. However, and this was key, it strikes earlier and with far less severity in the monkeys. Many monkeys survive, and their blood is full of neutralizing antibodies to the mutated virus. The Indians learned this, by trial and error I expect, so when they fell ill they drank the blood and were cured. In most cases, anyway, if they got the right monkey's blood.”

Tremont leaned forward. “The beauty of this symbiosis is that no matter how the virus mutates, the mutation always appears in the monkeys first, which means antibodies are always available for any mutation. Isn't that an exquisite bit of nature?”

“Stunning,” Haldane said drily. “But I see no avenue to profit in your anecdote. Does this virus exist elsewhere where there's no natural cure?”

“Absolutely nowhere as far as we've been able to ascertain. That's the key to the Hades Project.”

“Enlighten me. Please. I can't wait.”

Tremont laughed. “Sarcasm. One step at a time, Mercer.” He stood up and walked to the bar. He poured more of the chairman's fine cognac. Seated again, he crossed his knees. “Of course, we couldn't very well import millions of monkeys and kill them for their blood. Not to mention that not all monkeys carried the antibodies, and that blood would deteriorate rapidly anyway. So first we had to isolate the virus and the antibodies in the blood. Then we had to establish methods of large-scale production and provide a broad enough spectrum to accommodate some of the spontaneous mutations over time.”

“I suppose you're going to tell me you did all this.”

“Absolutely. We isolated the virus and were capable of production within the first year. The rest took varying lengths of time, and we finalized the recombinant antiserum only last year. Now we have millions of units ready to ship. It's been patented as a cure for the monkey virus, without mentioning the human virus, of course. That's going to appear to be a bit of luck. Our costs have been inflated and well tabulated, so we can claim a higher price to the public, and we've applied for FDA approval.”

Haldane was incredulous. “You don't have FDA approval?”

“When the pandemic starts, we'll get instant approval.”

“When it starts?” It was Haldane's turn to laugh. A derisive laugh. “What pandemic? You mean there's no epidemic of the virus to use your serum on? My God, Victor―”

Tremont smiled. “There will be.”

Haldane stared. “Will be?”

“There have been six recent cases in the United States, three of which we secretly cured with our serum. More victims here are coming down with it, plus there have already been over a thousand deaths overseas. In a few days, the globe will know what it's facing. It won't be pretty.”

Mercer Haldane sat motionless at his desk. Cognac forgotten. Cigar burning the desktop where the stub had fallen from the ashtray. Tremont waited, the smile never leaving his smooth face. His iron-gray hair and tan skin glowed in the lamplight. When Haldane finally spoke, his rigidity was painful to witness, even for Tremont.

But Haldane's voice was controlled. “There's some part of this scheme you aren't telling me.”

“Probably,” Tremont said.

“What is it?”

“You don't want to know.”

Haldane thought that over for a time. “No, it won't play. You're going to prison, Victor. You'll never work again.”

“Give me some credit. Besides, you're in as deep as I am.”

Haldane's white eyebrows shot up in surprise. “There's no way ―!”

Tremont chuckled. “Hell, you're in deeper. My ass is covered. Every order, every requisition, and every expenditure was approved and signed by you. Everything we did has your authorization in writing. Most of it's real because when you get in an irritable mood, you sign papers just to get them off your desk. I put them there, you scribbled your signature and shooed me out of the office like a schoolboy. The rest are forgeries no one's going to spot. One of my people has an expert.”

Like a wary old lion, Haldane repressed his outrage at Tremont's underhandedness. Instead, he studied his protegé, assessing the potential value of what he had revealed. Grudgingly, Haldane had to agree the profits could be astronomical, and he would see to it that he got his share. At the same time, he tried to detect a flaw, a mistake that could lead to all their downfalls.

Then Haldane saw it: “The government's going to want to mass-produce your cure. Give it to the world. They'll take it away from you. National interest.”

Tremont shook his head. “No. They couldn't produce the serum unless we gave them the details, and no one else has the production facilities in place. They won't try to take it anyway. First, because we'll have enough on hand to do the job. Second, no American government is going to deny us a reasonable profit. That's the name of the game we preach to the world, isn't it? This is a capitalist society, and we're simply practicing good capitalism. Besides, the spin is we're working around the clock to save humanity, so we deserve our reward. Of course, as I said, we've inflated our research costs, but they won't look too deep. The profits will be stupendous.”

Haldane grimaced. “So there's going to be a pandemic. I suppose the only good thing about that is you've got the cure. Perhaps not so many lives will be lost.”

Tremont noted the cynicism that Haldane had used to convince himself to capitulate. As always, Tremont had anticipated Haldane correctly. Now he looked slowly around the chairman's office as if memorizing every detail.

He focused on his former mentor again, and his face grew cool and remote. “But to make it all work, I need to be in charge. So at the board meeting tomorrow, you're going to step down. You're going to turn the company over to me. I'll be CEO, chairman of the executive committee, full control. You can stay on as chairman of the board, if you like. You can even have more contact with daily operations than any other board member. But in a year you'll retire with a very fat separation bonus and pension, and I'll take over the board, too.”

Haldane stared. The combative old lion was fraying around the edges. He had not anticipated this, and he was shocked. He had underestimated Tremont. “If I refuse?”

“You can't. The patent is in the name of my incorporated group, with me as principal stockholder, and licensed to Blanchard for a large percentage fee. You, by the way, approved that arrangement years ago, so it's quite legal. But don't worry. There'll be plenty for Blanchard, and a big bonus for you. The board and stockholders will be ecstatic at the profits, not to mention the public-relations coup. We'll be the heroes riding to rescue the world from an apocalyptic disaster worse than the Black Plague.”

“You keep stressing how much money I'm going to make. In or out. I see no reason to leave. I'll just run it myself and make sure you are financially rewarded.”

Tremont chuckled, enjoying the vision of being a savior and making a fortune worthy of Midas at the same time. Then he turned his gaze grimly onto Haldane. “The Hades Project will be a stunning success, the biggest Blanchard has ever had. But even though on paper you approved it all, you really know nothing about it. If you tried to take over, you'd look like a fool at best. At worst, you'd reveal your incompetence. Everyone would suspect you were trying to take credit for my work. At that point, I could get the board and stockholders to kick you out in five minutes.”

Haldane inhaled sharply. In his most terrifying nightmares, he had never expected this could happen. Events had him in an iron grip, and he had lost control. A sense of helplessness, of being a fish that thrashed inside an impenetrable net, swept over him. He could think of nothing to say. Tremont was right. Only a fool would fight now. Better to play the game and walk away with the loot. As soon as he decided that, he felt better. Not well, but better.

He shrugged. “Well, let's go and have dinner, then.”

Tremont laughed. “That's the Mercer I know. Cheer up. You'll be rich and famous.”

“I'm already rich. I never gave a damn about being famous.”

“Get used to it. You're going to like it. Think of all the former presidents you can play golf with.”

CHAPTER TWENTY ONE

Using Marty Zellerbach's credit card, Smith and Marty arrived in a rented jet at San Francisco International Airport late Friday afternoon. Worried about Marty's need to refill his prescription, Smith immediately rented a car, drove them downtown, and found a pharmacy. The druggist called Marty's Washington doctor at home for authorization, but the doctor insisted on speaking directly with Marty. As Marty talked, Smith listened on an extension.

The doctor was stiff and strained, and he asked irrelevant questions. Finally he wanted to know whether Colonel Smith was with Marty.

With a jolt of adrenaline, Smith grabbed the receiver from Marty's hand and hung up both phones.

As the pharmacist gave a puzzled frown from behind the glassed-in counter, Smith explained to Marty in a low voice, “Your doctor was trying to hold you here. Probably for the FBI or army intelligence to arrive and arrest me. Maybe for the killers at the bungalow, and we both know what they'd do.”

Marty's eyes widened in alarm. “The pharmacist gave the name of his drugstore and said where it was. Now my doctor knows, too!”

“Right. So does whoever was listening in on the doctor's end. Let's go.”

They rushed out. Marty's medication was wearing off, and they needed to save the last dose for the morning and the long drive ahead. Marty grumbled and stayed close to Smith. He put up with buying clothes and other necessities, and he grudgingly ate dinner in an Italian restaurant in North Beach that Smith remembered from a brief stint at the Presidio when it was an active army base. But the computer genius was growing more agitated and talkative.

At nightfall they took a room at the Mission Inn far out on Mission Street. Fog had rolled in, wrapping itself around picturesque lampposts and rising above bay windows.

Marty noticed none of the area's charm or the advantages of the small motel. “You can't possibly subject me to this medieval torture chamber, Jon. Who in heaven's name would be idiotic enough to want to sleep in such a foul dungeon?” The room smelled of the fog. “We'll go to the Stanford Court. It's at least presentable and almost livable.” It was one of San Francisco's legendary grande dame hotels.

Smith was amazed. “You've stayed there before?”

“Oh, thousands of times!” Marty said in an enthusiastic exaggeration that warned Smith he was beginning to spin out of control. “That's where we rented a suite when my father took me to San Francisco. I was enthralled by it. I used to played hide-and-seek in the lobby with the bellmen.”

“And everyone knew that's where you stayed in San Francisco?”

“Of course.”

“Go there again if you don't mind our violent friends finding you.”

Marty instantly flip-flopped. “Oh, dear me. You're right. They must be in San Francisco by now. Are we safe in this dump?”

“That's the idea. It's out of the way, and I registered under an alias We're only here one night.”

“I don't plan to sleep a wink.” Marty refused to take off his clothes for bed. “They could attack at any hour. I'm certainly not going to be seen running down the street in my nightshirt with those beasts or the FBI pursuing me.”

“You've got to get a good night's sleep. It's a long trip tomorrow.”

But Marty would hear none of it, and while Smith was shaving and brushing his teeth, he hooked a chair under the knob of the only door. Then he crumpled a newspaper sheet by sheet and arranged the crushed papers in front of the door. “There. Now they can't sneak in on us. I saw that in a movie. The detective put his pistol on the bedside table, too, so he could reach it quickly. You'll do that with your Beretta, Jon, right?”

“If it makes you feel better.” Smith came out of the bathroom, drying his face. “Let's get to bed.”

When Smith slid under the covers, Marty lay down fully dressed on the twin. He stared up at the ceiling, his eyes wide open. Suddenly he looked to Smith. “Why are we in California?”

Smith turned off the bedside light. “To meet a man who can help us. He lives in the Sierras near Yosemite.”

“That's right. The Sierras. Modoc country! You know the story of Captain Jack and the Lava Beds? He was a brilliant Modoc leader, and the Modocs were put on the same reservation as their arch enemies, the Klamaths.” In the dim room, Marty launched into the excited reverie of his unleashed mind. “In the end, the Modocs killed some whites, so the army came after them with cannon! Maybe ten of them against a whole regiment. And…”

He related every detail of the injustice done by the army to the innocent Modoc leader. From there he described the saga of Chief Joseph and his Nez Percé in Washington and Idaho and their mad dash for freedom against half the army of the United States. Before he had finished reciting Joseph's heartrending final speech, his head jerked around toward the door.

“They're in the corridor! I hear them! Get your gun, Jon!”

Smith leaped up, grabbed the Beretta, and tried to speed quietly through the rumpled newspapers, which was impossible. He listened at the door. His heart was thundering.

He listened for five minutes. “Not a sound. Are you sure you heard something, Marty?”

“Absolutely. Positively.” His hands flapped in the air. He was sitting upright, his back rigid, his round face quivering.

Smith crouched, trying to relieve his weary body. He continued to listen for another half hour. People came and went outside. There was conversation and occasional laughter. Finally he shook his head. “Not a thing. Get some sleep.” He moved through the noisy newspapers to his bed.

Marty was chastened and silent. He lay back. Ten minutes later he enthusiastically began the chronological history of every Indian War since King Philip's in the 1600s.

Then he heard steps again. “There's someone at the door, Jon! Shoot them. Shoot them! Before they break in! Shoot them!”

Jon sped to the door. But there was no sound beyond it. For Smith, it was the final straw. Marty would be inventing wild dangers and relating more stories about early America all night. He was reaching warp speed, and the longer he was off his medication, the worse it would be for both of them.

Smith got up again. “Okay, Marty, you'd better take your last dose.” He smiled kindly. “We'll just have to trust we can get you more when we get to Peter Howell's place tomorrow. Meanwhile, you've got to sleep, and so do I.”

Marty's mind buzzed and flashed. Words and images whipped through with incredible speed. He heard Jon's voice as if at a great distance, almost as if a continent separated them. Then he saw his old friend and the smile. Jon wanted him to take his drug, but everything within him railed against it. He hated to leave this thrilling world where life happened quickly and with great drama.

“Marty, here's, your medicine.” Jon stood beside him with a glass of water in one hand and the dreaded pill in the other.

“I'd rather ride a camel across the starry sky and drink blue lemonade. Wouldn't you? Wouldn't you like to listen to fairies playing their golden harps? Wouldn't you rather talk to Newton and Galileo?”

“Mart? Are you listening? Please take your meds.”

Marty looked down at Jon, who was crouching in front of him now, his face earnest and worried. He liked Jon for many reasons, none of which seemed relevant now.

Jon said, “I know you trust me, Marty. You've got to believe me when I tell you we let you stay off your medication too long. It's time for you to come back.”

Marty spoke in an unhappy rush. “I don't like the pills. When I take them, I'm not me. I'm not there anymore! I can't think because there's no `I' to think!”

“It's rough, I know,” Smith said sympathetically. “But we don't want you to cross the line. When you're off them too long, you go a little nuts.”

Marty shook his head angrily. “They tried to teach me how to be `normal' with other people the way they teach someone to play a piano! Memorize normality! `Look him in the eye, but don't stare.' `Put out your hand when it's a man, but let a woman put out her hand first.' Imbecilic! I read about a guy who said it just right: `We can learn to pretend to act like everyone else, but we really don't get the point.' I don't get the point, Jon. I don't want to be normal!”

“I don't want you to be `normal' either. I like your wildness and brilliance. You wouldn't be the Marty I know without that. But we've got to keep you balanced, too, so you don't go so far out into the stratosphere we can't bring you back. After we get to Peter's tomorrow, you can slide off the pills again.”

Marty stared. His mind did cartwheels of numbers and algorithms. He craved the freedom of his unfettered thoughts, but he knew Jon was right. He was still in control, but just barely. He did not want to risk dropping off the edge.

Marty sighed. “Jon, you're a champ. I apologize. Give me the darn pill.”

Twenty-five minutes later, both men were sound asleep.

Nadal al-Hassan strode off the DC-10 red-eye from New York into the main concourse. The overweight man in the shabby suit who greeted him had never met him, but there was no one else on the New York flight who fit the description he had been given.

“You al-Hassan?”

Al-Hassan eyed the shabby man with distaste. “You are from the detective agency?”

“You got that right.”

“What do you have to report?”

“FBI beat us to the drugstore guy, but all he knows anyways is there was two of 'em, an' when they left they took a taxi. We're checking the cab companies, an' so's the local cops and the FBI. Hotels, motels, roomin' houses, car rentals, an' other drugstores, too. So far nothin'. An' the cops an' FBI ain't doin' no better.”

“I will be at the Hotel Monaco near Union Square. Call me the instant you find anything.”

“You want us checkin' all night?”

“Until you find them, or the police do.”

The slovenly man shrugged. “It's your money.”

Al-Hassan caught a taxi to the newly renovated downtown San Francisco hotel with its small, elegant lobby and dining room decorated to look like a continental city in the 1920s. As soon as he was alone in his room, he phoned New York and reported everything the sloppy man had told him.

Al-Hassan said, “He cannot use army resources. We are covering all Smith's and Zellerbach's friends as well as everyone connected to the virus victims.”

“Hire another detective agency if you have to,” Victor Tremont ordered from his New York hotel room. “Xavier's found what this Zellerbach person was doing for him.” He recited the discoveries in Marty's computer logs. “Apparently, Zellerbach found the Giscours memo, and he uncovered reports about the virus in Iraq. Smith has probably figured out we have the virus, and now he wants to know what we're going to do with it. He's no longer a potential threat, he's a menace!”

Al-Hassan's voice was a promise. “Not for much longer.”

“Keep in touch with Xavier. This Zellerbach person tried to trace the Russell woman's phone call to me. We expect he'll try again. Xavier is monitoring Zellerbach's computer. If he uses it, Xavier will keep him online long enough to initiate a phone trace through our local police in Long Lake.”

“I will call Washington and give him my cell phone number.”

“Have you located Bill Griffin?”

AI-Hassan was quiet, embarrassed. “He has contacted no one since we assigned him to kill Smith.”

Tremont's voice cracked like a whip. “You still don't know where Griffin is? Incredible! How could you lose one of your own people!”

Al-Hassan kept his voice low, respectful. Victor Tremont was one of the few heathens in this godless country he respected, and Tremont was right. He should have kept a closer eye on the ex-FBI man. “We are working to find Griffin. It is a point of pride with me that we find him quickly.”

Tremont was silent, calming himself. At last he said, “Xavier tells me Martin Zellerbach was also looking for Griffin's most recent address, obviously for Smith. As you suggested, there is a connection somewhere. Now we have evidence of it.”

“It is interesting that Bill Griffin has made no attempt to contact or approach Jon Smith. On the other hand, Smith visited Griffin's ex-wife yesterday in Georgetown.”

Tremont considered. “Perhaps Griffin is playing both sides. Bill Griffin could turn out to be our most dangerous enemy, or our most useful weapon. Find him!”

Marty and Smith were awake and checked out by 7:00 A.M. By 8:00 they had driven across San Francisco's glistening bay and were heading east on I-580. After Lathrop, they crossed to 99 and 120 and headed south through fertile inland farmlands to Merced, where they stopped to eat a late breakfast. Then they turned east again, straight toward Yosemite on 140. The day was cool but sunny, Marty was still calm, and as they reached the higher elevations the sky seemed to grow a translucent blue.

They climbed steadily to the three-thousand-foot Mid Pines Summit, picked up the rushing Merced River, and entered the park at El Portal. Marty had been watching quietly out the window. As they climbed two thousand feet beside the rapidly falling river and into the famed valley, his gaze continued to drink in the stunning mountain scenery.

“I think I've missed getting out,” he decided. “Indescribably beautiful.”

“And few people to interfere with the view.”

“Jon, you know me too well.”

They drove past the towering stream of Bridal Veil Falls, wreathed in its own rising mists, and the sheer cliffs of El Capitan. In the distance was legendary Half Dome and Yosemite Falls. They turned sharply onto the north fork of the valley drive and continued on Big Oak Flat Road to its junction with high-elevation Tioga Road, which was closed to all traffic from November to May and often far into June. They continued east through patches of snow and the magnificent scenery of the high country of the untamed Sierras. At last they headed down the eastern slope, the land growing drier and less lush.

As they descended, Marty began singing old cowboy tunes. The meds were wearing off. A few miles before Tioga Road reached Highway 395 and the town of Lee Vining, Smith turned onto a narrow blacktop road. On either side were parched, grassy open slopes with barbed-wire fences marking property lines. Cattle and horses grazed under trees whose black silhouettes stood stark against the gold-velvet mountains.

Marty burst into song: “Home, home on the range, where the deer and the antelope play! Where seldom is heard a discouraging word and the skies are not cloudy all day!”

Smith drove the car up dizzying switchbacks, crossed several streams on rickety wood bridges, and ended at the edge of a deep ravine with a broad creek roaring below. A narrow steel footbridge crossed the ravine to a clearing and a log cabin hidden among towering ponderosa pine and incense cedar. The snow-capped peak of thirteen-thousand-foot Mount Dana towered like a sentinel in the distance.

As Smith parked, Marty continued to fly through his mind, stimulated by the remarkable range of scenery ― from ocean to mountains to cattle land. But now he realized they must be near their destination, and he would be expected to stay here. Sleep here. Maybe live here quite a while.

Smith came around and opened his door, and he climbed reluctantly out. He shrank from the footbridge, which swayed slightly in the wind. The ravine it crossed plunged thirty feet.

He announced, “I'm not putting a toe on that flimsy contraption.”

“Don't look down. Come on, over you go.” Smith pushed.

Marty clutched the handrails all the way. “What are we doing in this wasteland anyway? There's only that old shack over there.”

As they started up the dirt trail toward it, Jon said, “Our man lives there.”

Marty stopped. “That's our destination? I will not stay five seconds in anything so primitive. I doubt it has indoor plumbing. It certainly has no electricity, which means no computer. I must have a computer!”

“It also has no killers,” Smith pointed out, “and don't judge a book by its cover.”

Marty snorted. “That's a cliché.”

“On with you.”

When they reached the ponderosas, they plunged into the gloom under the thick branches that towered high above. The aroma of pine filled the air. Ahead through the tall trees the shack stood silent. Every time Marty looked at it, he shook his head in dismay.

Suddenly a high-pitched snarl froze them in their tracks.

A full-grown mountain lion sprang from a tree ahead and crouched ten feet away. Its long tail whipped, and its yellow eyes glared.

“Jon!” Marty cried and turned to run.

Smith grabbed his arm. “Wait.”

A voice with an English accent spoke from somewhere ahead. “Stand quite still, gentlemen. Don't raise a weapon, and he won't hurt you. And perhaps neither will I”

CHAPTER TWENTY TWO

From the low-roofed porch of the cabin, a lean man of medium build stepped out of the shadows holding a British Enfield bullpup automatic rifle. His words were addressed to Smith, but his gaze was fixed on Marty Zellerbach. “You said nothing about bringing anyone with you, Jon. I don't like surprises.”

Marty whispered, “I'd be happy to leave, Jon.”

Smith ignored him. Peter Howell was not Marty Zellerbach. His defenses were lethal, and you took them seriously. Smith spoke quietly to the man with the gun. “Whistle up the cat, Peter, and put down the armament. I've known Marty a lot longer than I've known you, and right now I need you both.”

“But I don't know him,” the wiry man said just as quietly. “There's the rub, eh? Are you saying you know all there is to know about him and that he's clean?”

“Nobody cleaner, Peter.”

Howell studied Marty for a long minute, his pale blue eyes cool, clear, and as penetrating as an X-ray machine. Finally he gave a harsh sound somewhere between blowing air and clearing his throat. “Ouish, Stanley,” he said softly. “Good cat. Go on with you.”

The mountain lion turned and padded away behind the cabin, glancing back occasionally over his shoulder as if he hoped he would be called upon to pounce.

The lean man lowered the assault rifle.

Marty's eyes were bright as he watched the big cat move off. “I've never heard of a trained mountain lion. How did you do it? He even has a name. How deliciously wonderful! Did you know African kings used to train leopards to hunt? And in India, they trained cheetahs―”

Howell stopped him. “We should have our talk inside, you see. Never know whose ears are listening.” He motioned with the Enfield and stood aside to let them precede him into the cabin. As Smith passed, the Englishman raised an eyebrow and nodded to Marty's back. Smith nodded affirmatively in return.

Inside, the cabin was larger than it appeared from the front and belied its rustic appearance. They stood in a well-appointed living room with nothing of the Western lodge about it except the enormous fieldstone fireplace. The furniture was comfortable English country-house antiques mixed with men's-club leather chairs and military mementoes from most wars of the twentieth century. The wall space not taken up by guns, regimental flags, and framed photos of soldiers displayed several giant abstract expressionist paintings ― de Kooning, Newman, and Rothko. Originals worth a fortune.

The room occupied the entire width of the cabin, but a wing, hidden from the front, extended at the left rear deep into the tall pines. The cabin was actually built in an L-shape, with most of it in the stem of the L. The first door off the hallway behind the living room proved to be a study with an up-to-date PC computer.

Marty let out a cry of joy. Peter Howell watched him dash for the computer, oblivious to anyone.

Howell quietly asked, “What is it?”

“Asperger's syndrome,” Smith told him. “He's a genius, especially with electronics, but being around people is hell for him.”

“He's off his medicines now?”

Smith nodded. “We had to leave Washington in a hurry. Give me a minute, then we'll talk.”

Without a word, Howell returned to the living room. Smith Joined Marty at the computer.

Marty looked up at him reproachfully. “Why didn't you tell me he had a generator?”

“The lion sort of took it out of my mind.”

Marty nodded, understanding. “Stan-the-cat is a mountain lion. Did you know that in China they trained Siberian tigers to―”

“Let's talk about it later.” Smith was not as confident of their safety as he had told Marty. “Can you try again to find out whether Sophia made or received special phone calls? And also locate Bill Griffin?”

“Precisely what I intended. All I need do is tie into my own mainframe and software. If your friend's equipment isn't as primitive as his choice of location, I'll be up and running in minutes.”

“No one can do it better.” Smith patted his shoulder and backed away, watching him hunch farther and farther over the keyboard as he entered the computer world that was all his own.

Marty muttered to himself, “How could this pipsqueak machine have so much power? Well, no matter. Things are surely looking up.”

Smith found Peter Howell sitting before a fireplace, cleaning a black metal submachine gun. Beside him, a roaring fire licked and spat orange flames. It was a homey picture, except for the military weapon in the Englishman's hands.

Howell spoke without looking up. “Take a chair. That old leather one is comfortable. Bought it from my club when I saw I'd become something of a liability at home and that it might be wise to do a bunk to where I was less known and could watch my back better.”

A shade under six feet, Howell was almost too lean under the dark blue-green plaid flannel shirt and heavy khaki British army trousers he wore stuffed into black combat boots. His narrow face had the color and texture of leather dried out by years of wind and sun. It was so deeply lined his eyes seemed sunk in ravines. The eyes were sharp but guarded. His thick black hair was nearly all gray, and his hands were curved brown claws.

“Tell me about this friend of yours ― Marty.”

Jon Smith sank into the chair and touched the high points of his and Marty's growing up together, the difficulties of Marty's young life, and the discovery that he had Asperger's syndrome. “It changed everything for him. The drugs gave him independence. With them, he could make himself sit through classes and then do the spade-and-shovel work necessary to get two Ph.D.s. When he's medicated, he can do the boring, nitty-gritty things that are necessary to survive. He changes lightbulbs, does his laundry, and cooks. Of course, he has plenty of money to hire people to do those things, but strangers make him nervous. He has to take the medicine anyway, so why not take care of himself?”

“Can't say I blame him. You said his medication was wearing off?”

“Yes. One way to tell is he talks in exclamation points, just as you heard. He lectures and enthuses and seldom sleeps and drives everyone nuts. If he stays off too long, he can zoom into never-never land and be so out of control he's dangerous to himself and maybe to others.”'

Howell shook his head. "I feel sorry for the young fellow, don't get me wrong.

Smith chuckled. “You've got it reversed. Marty feels sorry for you. And for me. Actually, he pities us, because we can never know what he knows. We can't conceptualize what he understands. It's everyone's loss that he's isolated himself to concentrate strictly on his computer interests, although from what I understand of what he's doing, other computer experts consult him from around the world. But never in person. Always by E-mail.”

Howell continued to clean his weapon ― a Heckler & Koch MP5, as lethal as it looked. He said, “But if he's mechanical and slow when he's on the drugs, and gaga when he's off, how does he manage to get anything accomplished?”

“That's the trick. He's learned to let himself go beyond the stage where the meds are working but not quite into the state where he's flying high and wild. He'll have a few hours a day in that in-between condition, and that's heaven for him. New ideas seize him with lightning speed. He's sharp, incisive, quick, and half out-of-control every minute. He's unbeatable.”

Howell's creviced face looked up from the weapon. His pale eyes flickered. “Unbeatable at computers, is he? Well, now. That's something else again.” He returned to the H&K submachine gun. It had been the weapon of choice of the British Special Air Service some years ago and probably was still.

“You always clean a gun when you have visitors?” Smith closed his eyes, resting after the long drive from San Francisco.

Howell snorted. “You ever read Doyle's The White Company? Quite good, actually. Much more interesting to me as a boy than Sherlock Holmes. Odd about that. The boy's the father of the man and all that.” He appeared to think about boys and men for a moment before continuing. “Anyway, there's an old bowman in the book ― Black Simon. One morning the hero asks him why he's sharpening his sword to a razor's edge, since the company doesn't expect any action. Black Simon tells him he dreamed of a red cow the nights before the major battles of Crecy and Poitiers, and last night he again dreamed of a red cow. So he was getting prepared. Of course, later that day, just as Simon expected, the Spanish attacked.”

Smith chuckled and opened his eyes. “Meaning, when I appear, you'd better prepare for trouble.”

Howell's weathered face smiled. “That's about it.”

“Right as usual. I need help, and it's probably dangerous.”

“What else is an old spook and desert rat good for?”

Smith had first met him during the boredom of Desert Shield when the hospital spent every day preparing and waiting for action that never came. But it came to Peter Howell. Or, to be exact, Peter and the SAS went to it. Peter had never said exactly where “it” had been, but one night he appeared at the hospital like a ghost who had arisen out of the sand itself. He had a high fever and was kitten-weak. Some doctors swore they had a heard a helicopter or a small land vehicle close by in the desert that night, but no one was sure. How he had arrived or who had brought him remained a mystery.

Smith realized instantly the unknown patient wearing British desert camos without rank or unit markings had been bitten by a venomous reptile. He had saved Peter's life with immediate treatment. In the following days, as Peter recovered, they came to know and respect each other. That was when Smith learned his name was Mal. Peter Howell, Special Air Service, and that he had been deep inside Iraq on some unnamed mission. That was all Peter would ever say. Since he was obviously far too old to be a normal SAS trooper, there had to be more to the story, but it was years before Smith gleaned the rest, and even then it remained hazy.

Simply put, Peter was one of those restless and reckless Brits who seemed to pop up in every conflict of the last two centuries, small or large, on one side or the other. Educated at both Cambridge and Sandhurst, a linguist and adventurer, he had joined the SAS in Vietnam days. When the action faded, he volunteered for MI6 and foreign intelligence. He had worked for one or the other ever since, depending on whether the wars were hot or cold, and sometimes for both at once. Until he grew too old for one, and outlived his usefulness to the other.

Now he had found a well-deserved retirement on the remote and sparsely populated eastern side of the Sierras. Or so it appeared. Smith had a suspicion his “retirement” was as murky as the rest of his life.

Now that Smith was AWOL, he needed the kind of help the SAS and MI6 could give. “I have to get into Iraq, Peter. Secretly, but with contacts.”

Howell began to reassemble the H&K. “That's not dangerous, my boy. That's suicide. No way. Not for a Yank or a Brit. Not the way things are over there these days. Can't be done.”

“They murdered Sophia. It has to be done.”

Howell made a sound much like his recall of Stan the mountain lion. “Like that, eh? Care to explain this AWOL nonsense?”

“You know I'm AWOL?”

“Try to keep in touch, you see. Been AWOL a few times myself. Usually a good story behind it.”

Smith filled him in on everything that had happened since the death of Major Anderson at Fort Irwin. “They're powerful, Peter, whoever they are. They can manipulate the army, the FBI, the police, perhaps even the whole government. Whatever they're planning, it's worth killing people for. I've got to know what that is and why they killed Sophia.”

His submachine gun cleaned, oiled, and back together, Howell reached out a brown claw for a humidor. He filled his pipe. Deeper in the house they could hear Marty raving at his computer, shouting excitedly to himself.

His pipe lit, puffing slowly, Howell muttered, “With that virus, and no known cure or vaccine, they can hold the planet hostage. It has to be someone like Saddam or Khadafy. Or China.”

“Pakistan, India, any country weaker than the West.” Smith paused. “Or no country. Perhaps it's all about money, Peter.”

As the aromatic pipe tobacco scented the room, Peter thought about it. “Getting you into Iraq could cost more than my life, Jon. The price could be an entire underground. The opposition against Saddam Hussein is weak in Iraq, but it does exist. While it bides its time, my people and your people are there to help build it up. They'll get you in if I ask, but they won't compromise the entire network. If you stumble into serious trouble, you'll be on your own. The U.S. embargo is ruining the lives of everyone except Saddam and his gang. It's killing children. You can expect little from the underground and nothing from the Iraqi people.”

Smith's chest tightened. Still he shrugged. “It's a risk I have to take.”

Howell smoked. “Then I better get cracking. I'll arrange all the protection I can. I wish I could go, too, but I'd be a liability. They know me too well in Iraq, you see.”

“It's better I go alone. I've got a job for you here anyway.”

Howell brightened. “Do tell? Well, I was becoming a trifle bored. Feeding Stanley has its limits as excitement.”

“Another thing,” Smith added. “Marty has to have his meds, or he'll soon be useless. I can give you the empty bottles, but we can't contact his doctor in Washington.”

Howell took the bottles and vanished into the hall and on past the room where Marty raved. Smith sat alone, listening to Marty. Outdoors the wind blew through the majestic ponderosa pines. It was a comforting sound, as if the earth were breathing. He let himself relax wearily into the chair. He cut off his grief for Sophia and his feelings of worry and all the tension of whether he could find what he needed in Iraq, and whether he would survive if he did. If anyone could get him into that brutalized country, it was Peter. He was sure answers were there somewhere ― if not among those who had died from the virus last year, then among those who had survived.

In the single large room of Marty Zellerbach's disordered bungalow off Dupont Circle, computer expert Xavier Becker watched in fascination as Zellerbach, accessing his huge Cray mainframe from some remote PC, probed through the computers of the telephone company with the delicate skill of a surgeon.

Xavier had never seen anything like the search-and-cracking software Zellerbach had created. The sheer beauty and grace of the man's work almost made him forget what he was there for.

It was all he could do to keep one step ahead of Zellerbach as he led the distant cracker through a maze of phony positive results to keep him online while the police up north in Long Lake village traced Zellerbach through the maze of relays across the world. Xavier sweated, worrying Zellerbach would switch the sequence of relay lines, which would mean they would lose him. But Zellerbach never did. Xavier could not understand the oversight by such a genius. It was as if Zellerbach had set up his system of relays to hide his location because he knew it was the right thing to do, not because he cared about the reasons behind it, and so never thought of switching the trail again.

A tense voice announced in his earphones, “Just a few more minutes. Hold him on, Xavier.”

Jack McGraw at Long.Lake sounded as if he were sweating as much as Xavier. Twice before they had almost had Zellerbach, when Xavier had led him in circles with phony data while he tried to locate Bill Griffin, and again when he accessed USAMRIID's computer to check on progress with the unknown virus. Each time Zellerbach had moved too fast for Xavier to hold him. But not this time. Maybe Xavier's false data was better now, or maybe Zellerbach was getting tired and losing his concentration. Whatever it was, another two or three minutes and…

“Got him!” Jack McGraw's voice exulted. “He's online outside some little burg in California called Lee Vining. Al-Hassan's near Yosemite. We're alerting him now.”

Xavier switched off. He felt none of the security chief's jubilation as he watched Zellerbach still following the fake trail he expected to lead to the phone call the Russell woman had made to Tremont. Zellerbach's creativity was too beautiful to be sabotaged by his own carelessness. It made Xavier feel sad and confused. It looked as if Zellerbach had been carried away by his own enthusiasm, by a kind of naive ignorance of the existence of the Xavier Beckers or the Victor Tremonts of this world.

Smith stepped into the computer room, and Marty's frustration greeted him like an atomic blast. “Zounds, zounds, zounds! Where are you, you chimera! No one defeats Marty Zellerbach, you hear? Oh, I know you're there! Fuck and damn and―”

“Mart?” Smith had never heard him swear. It must be another sign he was going over the edge. “Mart! Stop it. What's going on?”

Marty went on swearing. He pounded the console, unaware Smith was speaking or that he was even in the room.

“Mart!” Smith grabbed his shoulder.

Marty whirled like a wild animal, teeth bared. And saw Smith. He suddenly collapsed in upon himself, drooping limp in his chair. He stared up with anguish. “Nothing! Nothing. I've found nothing. Nothing! ”

“That's okay, Marty,” Smith said in a soothing voice. “What didn't you find? Bill Griffin's address?”

“Not a trace. I was so close, Jon. Then nothing. The phone calls, too. I'm in my computer, using my own software. Just another step. It's there, I know it! So close―”

“We knew it was a long shot. What about the virus? Anything new at Fort Detrick?”

“Oh, I had that in minutes. Officially, there have now been fifteen deaths and three survivals here in America.”

Smith jerked alert. “More deaths? Where? And survivors? How? What kind of treatment?”

“No details. Had to break through a brand-new security wall to find what I did. The Pentagon has all its data shut down, except to me.” He chortled. “No information to the public except through the military.”

“That's why we didn't hear about the survivors. Can you locate them?”

“I haven't seen a whisper of who they are or where they are. Sorry, Jon!”

“Not at Detrick or the Pentagon?”

“No, no. Neither place. Terrible. I think those Pentagon bandits are keeping the information off-system!”

Smith thought rapidly. His first instinct had been to find the survivors and try to get close enough to interview them. It seemed like the easiest, most direct route.

The reason the government had shut down the information was probably to avoid panicking people ― standard operating procedure ― and the situation was likely a lot worse than fifteen deaths. Scientists would be studying the three survivors around the clock to find answers before going public. Which meant every possible American human and technological security would be assigned.

Inwardly he sighed, frustrated. No way was he or even Peter Howell going to get past that.

Besides, the survivors would be the first place army intelligence, the FBI, and the murderers would expect him to go. They would be waiting. He inhaled and nodded. There was no choice. The only survivors he had a chance to reach were in Iraq. That locked-down country did not expect him, and they did not have the technological wizardry of the U.S. government. His best and fastest hope of finding out what was behind all this was to go there.

Marty was saying excitedly, “There! Almost got you! Just another minute.”

Smith came out of his reverie to see him screaming at the console, hunched toward the screen like a hunter who sees his prey only a few feet ahead.

Fear tightened Smith's chest. Suddenly the mechanics of what Marty was doing made terrible sense. He snapped, “How long have you been connected to your computer in Washington?”

Howell appeared in the doorway. His wiry body went rigid. “He's been online through his own computer?”

“How long, Mart?” Smith repeated tensely.

Marty came out of his thrilled trance. He blinked and checked the time on the screen. “An hour, perhaps two. But it's fine. I'm using a series of relays all over the world, just as we're supposed to. Besides, it's my own computer. I―”

Smith swore. “They know where your computer is! They could be in your bungalow right now, inside your computer, teasing you on! Was the trail through the telephone company there the first time you cracked in?”

“Heck, no! I located a whole new path. I found a new one for Bill Griffin, too, but that led nowhere. This one in the phone company keeps opening up to new avenues. I know I can―”

Peter Howell's voice was crisp. “Do they have people in California?”

“I'd bet the farm on it,” Smith told him.

“His meds are on the way.” Howell spun on his heel. “Your killers can trace the phone line to Lee Vining and to me. Not my real name, of course. They'll have to locate the cabin, get out here, find the road, and reach us. I'd say an hour at worst. With luck two. We'd be wise to be away in less than one.”

CHAPTER TWENTY THREE

Victor Tremont adjusted his dinner jacket and straightened his black tie in the mirror of his suite in the Waldorf-Astoria tower. Behind him, still stretched naked on the rumpled bed, was Mercedes O'Hara. She was beautiful ― all curves and lush, golden skin.

She fixed her dark eyes on him in the mirror. “I do not like to be hung in the bedroom closet with the suits until you decide I am to be used again, Victor.”

Tremont scowled into the mirror. Neither patient nor reserved, the tall woman with the cascade of red hair falling across her breasts had been a mistake. Tremont rarely made that misjudgment. In fact, he could think of only one other time. That woman had killed herself when he had told her he would never marry her.

“I have a meeting, Mercedes. We'll go to dinner when I get back. The table is reserved at Le Cheval, your favorite. If that doesn't suit you, leave.”

Mercedes would not kill herself. The Chilean woman owned extensive vineyards and a world-renowned winery in the Maipo Valley, sat on the boards of two mining companies and in the Chilean parliament, and had been a cabinet minister and would be again. But like all women, she demanded too much of his time and sooner or later would insist on marriage. None understood he did not need or want a companion.

“So?” She continued to observe from where she reclined on the bed. “No promises? One woman is the same as another. We are all a nuisance. Victor can love only Victor.”

Tremont found himself annoyed. “I wouldn't say―”

“No,” she interrupted, “that would require for you to understand.” She sat up on the bed, swung her long legs over the edge, and stood. “I think I am tired of you, Dr. Tremont.”

He stopped adjusting his black tie and watched in disbelief as she strode to her clothes and dressed without looking at him again. A surge of unexpected anger took hold of him. Who did she think she was? Such disgusting arrogance. With a powerful effort he repressed his rage. He returned to arranging his tie and smiled at her in the mirror.

“Don't be ridiculous, my dear. Go and have a cocktail. Put on that green evening gown that makes you look so wonderful. I'll meet you at Le Cheval in an hour. Two at the most.”

Dressed in the black Armani suit that made her red hair flame, she laughed. “You are such a sad man, Victor. And such a fool.”

Before he could respond, she had walked out of the bedroom, still laughing.

He heard the outer suite door slam.

Rage swept down over him like a mountain avalanche, and he felt himself actually shake. He took two swift steps toward the open bedroom door. No one laughed at Victor Tremont. No one! A woman. He would… would ―

His face burned as if he had a fever. His fists clenched at his sides as if he were still a schoolboy.

Then he gave a short laugh. What the hell was he doing? The stupid woman.

She had saved him the tedium of correcting his mistake. He had thought this one was intelligent, but, in the end, none was. With relief, he saw now there would be no dramatic and tearful scenes of abandonment. He would not have to give her any expensive farewell gifts. She would walk away with nothing. Who was the fool now?

Grinning broadly, he returned to the mirror, finished adjusting his tie, smoothed his dinner jacket, took one last appraising glance at himself, and turned to leave the room for his meeting. Before he reached the door, his private cell phone rang. He hoped it was al-Hassan with news of Jon Smith and Marty Zellerbach.

“Well?”

The Arab's voice was reassuring. “Zellerbach connected to his own computer to continue searching for the Russell woman's phone call to you. Xavier held him on long enough for McGraw to trace him to Lee Vining, California.” There was a pleased pause. “I am there now.”

“Where in God's name is Lee Vining?”

“On the eastern side of the Sierra Nevadas near Yosemite National Park.”

“How did you know to go to such a place?”

“The FBI found the motel where they'd slept last night and then located where they'd rented a car. Smith had asked for a map of Northern California and if a certain road through Yosemite was open. We drove to the park, and when McGraw contacted us, we simply continued on to Lee Vining. They're at the phone number of a man named Nicholas Romanov, obviously a false name. We are on our way there.”

Tremont inhaled, pleased. “Good. Anything else?” At last the annoyance of Lt. Col. Jon Smith was ending.

The Arab's voice dropped lower ― confidential. Pride radiated in his words. “Yes, I have other news. Very good news that you will like and not like. My investigation of Smith has shown that this Marty Zellerbach is an old friend from his school days ― and so is Bill Griffin.”

Tremont growled, “So Griffin did warn Smith in Rock Creek park!”

“And undoubtedly has no intention of killing Smith. But he may not be overtly betraying us.”

“You think he still wants the money?”

“I see no signs that say otherwise.”

Tremont nodded, thinking. “Then we may be able to use him to our advantage. All right, you deal with Jon Smith and everyone with him.” A plan was beginning to form in his mind. Yes, he knew exactly what to do. “I'll handle Griffin.”

Bill Griffin smiled thinly. The white pizza delivery truck had passed Jon Smith's three-story, saltbox-style house three times in the last two hours. He was inside the dark house and had been since 6:00 P.M., after abandoning his all-day stakeout of Fort Detrick. The first time he had seen the pizza truck slow as it passed the house, it had caught his attention. Could it have been Jon checking to be sure the house was safe and unwatched? The second time, he was prepared with his nightvision binoculars and saw that the driver was not Jon. By the third time, he knew: One of al-Hassan's men was looking for Jon ― and perhaps for him, too.

Griffin knew the Arab had been suspicious ever since Rock Creek park, but al-Hassan would not expect Griffin to be waiting inside the house. Griffin had been careful to leave no indications he was there. His car was hidden in the garage of an empty house three blocks away, and he had entered Jon's place by picking the lock on the back door. Since Jon had returned to neither Detrick nor Thurmont, Griffin was beginning to think he would not. Had al-Hassan already killed him? No, otherwise al-Hassan would not be sending men to look for either Jon or Griffin.

He moved swiftly through the dark shadows and into the study. Once the computer was up and running, he entered the password and encryption code for his secret Web site. He immediately saw the message from his old FBI partner, Lon Forbes:

Colonel Jonathan Smith is trying to find you. He also contacted Marjorie for the same reason. FBI, police, and army are looking for Smith: AWOL and sought for questioning in two deaths. Let me know if you want to talk to him.

Griffin thought, and then he checked for anything else. This time he spotted the footprints of someone who had hacked into the site, which might mean a third person was searching for him. There was nothing on the Web site to tell a hacker where he was. Still, a third tracker made him uneasy.

He exited, shut down the computer, and returned to the rear door. When he was sure there was still no one surveilling the back of the house, he slipped away into the night.

The four people who were gathered in a private room at the Harvard Club on Forty-fourth Street were nervous. They had known one another for years, occasionally on opposing sides and with conflicting interests, but now a shared attraction to money, power, and a view of the future they liked to call “clear-eyed” had brought them together in this room.

The youngest of the four, Maj. Gen. Nelson Caspar, executive officer to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, held a low conversation with Congressman Ben Sloat, who was a periodic visitor to Victor Tremont's hidden Adirondack estate. General Caspar glanced every few seconds at the door to the room. Nancy Petrelli, secretary of Health and Human Services, paced alone near the curtained windows in her cream-colored St. John's knit suit. Lt. Gen. Einar Salonen (Ret.), major lobbyist for the American military-industrial complex, sat in an armchair holding a book but not really reading. Neither General Caspar nor General Salonen wore their uniforms, preferring simple but expensive business suits for this clandestine meeting.

Their heads rotated almost in unison as the door opened.

Victor Tremont hurried in. “Sorry, gentlemen and lady” ― a slight bow to the HHS secretary ― “but I was held up by some business relating to our problem with Colonel Smith, which, I'm happy to say, is about to be settled.”

A murmur of relief spread across the room.

“How did the meeting with Blanchard's board of directors go?” General Caspar rumbled. It was the question on everyone's minds.

Tremont perched on the arm of a leather couch, elegant in his dinner jacket and black tie. Assurance radiated from him, and he seemed to draw his four distinguished guests toward him like a magnet. He lifted his patrician chin and laughed. "I'm now in firm control of the entire company.

General Salonen's voice was loudest. “Congratulations!”

“Great news, Victor,” Congressman Sloat agreed. “This puts us in the power position.”

Secretary Petrelli admitted, “I wasn't sure you could pull it off.”

“I had no doubt.” General Caspar smiled. “Victor always wins.”

Tremont laughed again. “Thank you. Thank you very much for your vote of confidence. But I must say I agree with General Caspar.”

Now everyone laughed, even Nancy Petrelli. But her laughter had little humor in it. She went right to the critical point: “You told the board? The details?”

“Chapter and verse.” Tremont crossed his arms, smiled, and waited. Teasing them.

The tension in the room grew electric. Their gazes were riveted on him.

“And?” Nancy Petrelli demanded at last.

“What did the goddamned board say?” General Salonen wanted to know.

Victor Tremont smiled broadly. “They jumped on the Hades Project like a dog on a bone.” He gazed around the room at the relieved faces. “You could see the dollar signs flash in their eyes. I thought I was in Las Vegas, and they were slot machines.”

“No qualms?” Congressman Sloat asked. “We don't have to worry about second thoughts? Bad consciences?”

Tremont shook his head. “Remember, we hand-picked all of them. We pooled our sources so we could choose for background, interest, and risk tolerance.” His biggest problem had been getting the names past Haldane so they could be proposed and voted onto the board while old members retired or their terms expired. “Of course, now the question is whether we judged them accurately.”

“Obviously we did,” Congressman Sloat said with satisfaction.

“Exactly,” Tremont said. “Oh, they were a little green around the gills when I laid out the possible deaths without our serum, and all the deaths that will unavoidably occur before it is approved for use on humans. But I explained that on the other hand the virus wasn't a hundred percent fatal without treatment, and they realized the deaths would extrapolate into not much more than a million or so worldwide if the government accepts our serum quickly.”

Nancy Petrelli, ever the pessimist, said, “And if the government won't pay our price at all?”

A heavy silence dropped like a dark shroud over the small room. They looked uneasily away from the HHS secretary. It was a question that had been on all their minds.

“Ah, well,” Tremont said, “we knew that risk from the start. It was the gamble we took to make the billions we're going to. But I doubt our government or any other government will see another choice. If they don't buy the serum, an awful lot of their people are going to die everywhere. That's the simple answer.”

General Caspar nodded appreciatively. “Who dares, wins.”

“Ah, yes. The motto of the SAS.” Tremont nodded recognition to the general and added drily, “But I'd like to think we take our risks for much larger and more realistic rewards than a few medals and a pat on the back from the queen, eh?”

Tremont swung his leg as he watched the four wrestle with the enormity of it. Conscience makes cowards of us all. Shakespeare's words, or close enough, echoed through his mind. But screw your courage to the sticking point, we shall not fail. But it was not courage or Shakespeare that had made them accept the risk of the potential slaughter. Not at the beginning of the twenty-first century. It was power and wealth.

General Salonen said bluntly, “But none of us or our families will die. We have the serum.”

They had all thought it, but only Salonen had the bravery or perhaps the insensitivity to say it. Tremont continued to wait.

“How long until it begins?” Nancy Petrelli asked.

Tremont considered. “I'd say in three or four days the reality of a pandemic will strike the global conscience like a bolt of lightning.”

There was a murmur. Whether it was pity or greed it was hard to tell.

“When it does,” Tremont continued, “I want each of you to emphasize the danger to humanity. Hit the panic buttons. Then we make our announcement of the serum.”

“And ride to the rescue.” General Caspar gave a coarse laugh.

All their doubts vanished as the four conspirators united in their vision of the goal they had dreamed of for so long. It was close. Very close. Just on the other side of the horizon. For the moment, any fear of an opposition, of Bill Griffin's potential treachery, or of Jonathan Smith's determined investigation flew from their minds.

“Beautiful,” someone breathed.

CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR

“Oh, look!” Marty cried. “That's so beautiful!” He came to an abrupt halt in the hallway, turned, and his awkward body rolled and thumped into a dim, cavernous room near the back of Peter Howell's Sierra hideaway. He gazed transfixed at the opposite wall, his green eyes shining.

On the wall, about ten feet above the floor, transparent electronic maps glowed. Each nation was alight in a different color. Tiny blinking bulbs moved continuously across the maps. Rows of multicolored lights blazed after each name on a roster that hung next to the maps. Beneath it all, state-of-the-art computer equipment filled the wall. In the center of the room waited a leather-and-steel command chair. On either side of it stood a large globe and a file cabinet.

Smith studied the maps ― Iraq, Iran, Turkey, and the parts of all three that formed the historic land of the Kurds. Then there was East Timor. Colombia. Afghanistan. Southern Mexico and Guatemala. El Salvador. Israel. Rwanda. The hot spots of tribal conflict, ethnic strife, peasant revolt, religious militancy, popular insurgency.

“Your control room?” Jon asked Peter.

“Right.” Peter nodded. “Good to keep busy.”

It was more than any one private citizen should ― or could ― have. Obviously, Peter Howell was still working for somebody.

Marty rushed toward the computer installation. “I knew your PC had far too much power to be ordinary. It must be connected to this Goliath. It's gorgeous! I want maps like yours for my bungalow. You're monitoring activities in these countries, aren't you? Are you linked directly to centers in each one? You must show me what you're doing. How the maps are linked. How―”

“Not now, Mart.” Jon tried to be patient. “We're on our way out. We're evacuating, remember?”

Marty's face fell. “What's so important about leaving? I want to live in this room.” The sullen expression vanished. His round face was as alight as the maps above. “That's what I'm going to do! It's perfect. The whole world will come to me here. I'll never have to leave or―”

“We're leaving right now,” Jon said firmly, pushing him toward the door. “You could help us load, okay?”

“As long as we're here, I'll take my files.” Peter grabbed a stack of brown files from the top of the free-standing cabinet. As he walked out the door, he pressed a finger against the frame. Jon heard a quiet click. “You two take what food you like from the kitchen to tide us over a day or so. We'll need weapons and ammo, and the whiskey, of course.”

Jon nodded. “We have things in our car, too. How the hell do we carry it all?”

“Ah, trust me.”

A low crooning sound came from the control room. Marty had slipped away from Jon and now sat in Peter's power chair before the wall-sized console. He rocked from side to side, his gaze locked on the shifting array of lights on the transparent wall maps. He was beginning to understand what they all meant, how they interconnected. It was intriguing. He could almost feel the lights pulse in rhythm with his brain ―

Jon touched his shoulder. “Mart?”

“No!” He whirled as if bitten. “I'll never leave! Never! Never! Nev…”

Jon tried to hold him as he kicked and writhed. “He needs to go back on his meds, pronto,” he told Peter.

Wild with rage, Marty lashed out with his fists, swearing incoherencies. Jon gave up and grabbed him in a bear hug, lifted him so that his feet were off the floor, and moved him away from the console as he continued to kick and shout.

Peter frowned. “We don't have time for this.” He stepped forward and slugged Marty on the chin.

Marty's eyes widened, and then he collapsed in Jon's arms, unconscious.

Peter's wiry frame trotted back out into the hallway. “Bring him.”

Jon sighed. He had a feeling Marty and Peter were not going to get along. He picked up Marty, who had a peaceful expression on his round face. He dropped him over his shoulder and followed the ex-SAS trooper and MI6 agent through the rear door in the kitchen into what turned out to be a garage.

Parked and waiting was a medium-sized RV.

“There's another road,” Jon realized. “Of course, there has to be. You're not going to live anywhere where you know you're trapped.”

“Right. Never have only one way out. It's a dirt road. Not on the map, not maintained well, but it'll do. Stash Marty in the RV.”

Jon deposited Marty on one of the three bunk beds fastened in a stack in the back. The rest of the RV's interior was the usual ― kitchen, dining nook, bath, all in miniature, except for the living room. That was the heart of the vehicle. It was a compact version of the map-and-computer center from the house, complete with wall maps, console, and tiny colored lights that came to life as Jon watched.

“Adding a final boost to the batteries,” Peter said as Jon returned to the garage. The Brit had hooked up the RV to the house current.

For the next hour they carried food, whiskey, guns, and ammo from the house. While Jon packed it away, Peter vanished to make arrangements. Finally Marty moaned on the bunk and flopped one arm. At the same time, Jon heard the approaching engine of a low-flying aircraft.

He pulled out his Beretta and raced into the house.

“Relax,” Peter told him.

They went out front to stand together and look up at the mountain sky. A single-engine Cessna swooped low and roared over the cabin. A small steel tube dropped from it into the clearing. Moments later, Peter returned with the tube.

“The little man's medicine.”

Inside the RV, Jon sat the groaning Marty up on the bunk, gave him a pill and a glass of water, and watched him take the drug, grumbling the whole time. Then he lay back without a word and stared up at the RV's ceiling. He rarely spoke of his affliction, but sometimes Jon caught him in an unguarded moment like this, staring off as if wondering what other people felt and thought, what a `normal life' was really all about.

Peter stuck his head inside the door. His face was grim. "We have company.

“Stay down, Mart.” Jon patted his friend and hurried out into the garage.

Binoculars dangled from Peter's neck. He held his cleaned H&K MP5 in one hand, and with the other he tossed Jon the bullpup Enfield. His lined, perpetually tanned face had some kind of strange inner glow, as if who he really was ― what he really liked, what made his blood course ― had suddenly come alive.

Jon inhaled and felt the buzz of excitement and fear that he used to crave. Perhaps the killers had arrived. And he was ready to meet them. In fact, eager.

With Peter in the lead, they loped through the house and out onto the front porch. They stayed hidden behind bushes that rimmed the porch as they studied the steel footbridge that crossed the deep ravine and the five figures on the far side, who were investigating Jon's rental car.

Peter watched through binoculars. “Three are sheriff's deputies from the county. Two are wearing dark suits and hats and appear to be running the show.”

“They don't sound like our killers.” Jon took the glasses and focused. Three definitely were uniformed police of some kind, and the other two were doing the ordering. The two in suits stood apart talking to each other as if the police weren't there. One pointed at the cabin.

“FBI,” Jon guessed. “They won't come over shooting. I'm just AWOL.”

“Unless they're in cahoots with your villains, or unless the situation has changed. Best we take no chances. Let's give them something to think about.”

Peter left Jon and disappeared back into the house. Jon continued to focus on the FBI men, who were instructing the deputies to stay back as they advanced. All five took out their weapons and, with the FBI in the lead, approached the bridge. The first FBI man carried an electric bullhorn.

They were only steps from the bridge when the five men came to an abrupt, astonished halt. Jon blinked, unsure himself. One second the footbridge had been there. The next, it vanished.

There was a slapping sound, and dust rose from the ravine in a hazy brown-and-white cloud.

The intruders' mouths fell open. They looked down, then up and across. The two cops ambled forward. Through the binoculars, Jon watched them grin and peer appreciatively down into the steep ravine again. It was a joke on the FBI. The men laughed.

Peter returned to crouch beside Jon. “Surprise them a trifle?”

“I'd say. What happened?”

“Electric legerdemain. The bridge has deucedly massive hinges on this side. When I release the gadgets that attach it at the far side, it swings down into the ravine, bounces against the wall, and comes to rest hanging straight down. A job putting it back, but a crew from Lee Vining will do that when I need them.” He stood. “Anyway, that should hold them a half hour or so. It's a nasty climb down and up. Come on.”

Jon chuckled as they trotted back through the house and into the garage, where Marty now sat on the RV steps looking tired and rueful. “Hi, Jon. Was I trouble?” His words were slow.

“You were brilliant as usual, but we're going to have to abandon our clothes again. The FBI's found us. They've got our car, and we're leaving fast.”

“What can I do?”

“Get back inside and wait.”

Jon stepped out back again. He found the Brit sitting cross-legged in the pine-needle duff under the trees. Sunlight shone through the pine branches, making intricate patterns on the Englishman and the golden mountain lion sitting on its haunches, facing him.

Peter spoke quietly. “Sorry, Stanley, but I'm off again. A nuisance, I know. So it's back to the missus and fend for yourself for a bit, I'm afraid. Hold the fort until I return, and I'll be back before you can say Bob's your uncle.”

The big solemn cat, his tail lying quiet, had fixed its yellow eyes on Peter. It almost seemed to Jon the cat actually understood the words. Whatever it was-words or tone or body language-the cougar stepped close, reached out its neck, and gently nudged Peter on the nose.

“Good-bye, boy.” Peter nudged back.

He stood. They exchanged a look, and the cat turned and bounded lightly off into the trees. Peter headed toward Jon.

“Will he be okay?” Jon wondered. “Can he survive alone?”

“Stan's only partly trained, Jon. Not tame. I'm not sure any cat is actually tame, but that's a different discussion. Stanley will tolerate and protect me and the cabin, but he actually lives something of a double life. He's got his territory, hunts as usual, mates, and has cubs, but for some reason has accepted me and my spread as part of his responsibility. He eats the food I give him as compensation for taking time off from the hunt, I think, not because he needs it. He'll be fine.”

“He won't try to attack those cops out there?”

“Only if I told him to. Otherwise he'll avoid humans, as any lion will unless he's threatened. But he'll protect the place against other animals ― bears, for example, who'd destroy it.” Suddenly he raised his head, cocked an ear. “Right! They're in the ravine and starting up. Time to dust.”

Moments later, loaded and electrically charged, the RV was bouncing away down the mountainside among the tall pines and cedars and the occasional black oak. Behind them, a series of muffled explosions sounded inside the cabin.

“J-o-n! What's that?” Marty's head swiveled.

“They're in the house!” Jon swore. “Damn.”

“Hardly,” Peter told them. “A little self-destruct device. Can't leave the control and computer room for them, can we? It's imploding now. Everything in there will be destroyed, but the rest of the house will be fine. Untouched. Clever, eh? Work of an old sapper I know gone electronic.”

With winter late in the Sierras, white patches from early snowfalls sparkled among the trees. Exposed rocks and ruts from past rains jarred the RV. They made decent time as they swayed, dipped, and jounced down serpentine switchbacks.

Jon hung on. “Did you get me set up for Iraq?”

Peter reached into the pocket of the bush jacket he had put on over his flannel shirt. He handed Jon an envelope. “Printout's inside. Follow the instructions to the letter, or the trip will be over long before you know it. To the letter.”

“I understand.”

Peter glanced sideways. “There was talk of a task for me.”

“What about me, Jon?” Marty asked from behind.

“You know what we have to do,” Jon told them. “Find where the virus came from, how to treat it, who has it, what they plan to do with it, and who killed Sophia.”

“And how to stop them,” Peter said grimly.

“Especially how to stop them.” Jon hung on as a deep pothole hurled them off their seats, shaking their bones. “Every Bio-Level Three and Four lab around the globe is working on the treatment, so we've got help there. But that still leaves the other questions. In reality, it's all one big one: Who has it? But information about any one of the others could lead to the final answer. I'm counting on Iraq as the best chance to discover where it came from and what they're planning to do with it.”

“And the answer to who killed Sophia could also tell us the rest, too,” Peter decided. “My assignment, right?”

“Yes. Yours and Marty's.” He looked back. “You keep trying to pull up any missing phone calls, Mart, and locate Griffin. But hit and run this time. Don't stay on the same line long. Switch routes. Those are two important assignments.”

Marty's face was guilty. “I'm sorry, Jon.”

“I know.” Jon paused. “We've got to have some way to stay in touch.”

“The Internet,” Marty said promptly. “But not regular E-mail.”

“Right you are,” Peter agreed. “But perhaps there's somewhere we can leave a message.”

Jon smiled. “I know ― right under their noses, where they'll never see it. We can use the Asperger's syndrome Web site.”

Marty nodded enthusiastically. “That's great, Jon. Perfect.”

They continued to discuss the site's Web ring and what kind of coded messages to leave until Peter suddenly shouted: “Hold fast! Bogies at ten o'clock!”

The RV gave a wild lurch to the right, swaying so far over for a second it rode on two wheels. A volley of shots exploded from the forest. Glass flew and metal ripped at the back of the RV. Marty cried out.

“Mart?” Jon looked back.

Marty sat huddled on the floor of the careening RV, clutching his left leg and trying not to be flung from side to side like a sack of flour. A bloody sack of flour. Jon could see a spreading pool of red on Marty's trouser leg, but Marty grinned feebly and said in a shaky voice, “I'm all right, Jon.”

“Get a towel,” Jon called back, “fold it and press it hard against the wound. If the bleeding doesn't stop soon, yell out.”

He needed to stay in the cab where he could use Peter's Enfield if any of the attackers cut them off.

Peter was too busy to use a weapon as he turned the wheel with a vise grip, his pale eyes cool. The unwieldy vehicle bounced off the road through the trees and brush, miraculously hitting nothing as Peter guided it with the precision of an astronaut docking at a space station. Twice he plunged the massive vehicle through streams, kicking up sheets of water and tilting dangerously on rocks hidden beneath the surfaces.

On the road, two men ran with rifles trying to get a clear shot at the RV, but the bone-jarring, unpredictable lurches and bounces of the vehicle frustrated them. They dodged branches and leaped over rocks. Behind them, a gray SUV battled to turn on the narrow road so it could join the pursuit.

As the runners fell farther behind, Jon spotted a deep ravine looming straight ahead. “Peter! Careful!”

“Got it!” Peter slammed the brakes and pivoted in a half J-turn. The top-heavy vehicle threatened to flip over as it skidded sideways, sideswiped two giant boulders, and finally came to a shuddering stop barely feet from the chasm.

On the road, the runners were far back but closing in again. In the distance, the SUV had almost succeeded in turning.

Tension in the RV was thick. Jon stared down at the deep ravine and wiped sweat from his face.

“Here we go.” Peter gunned the engine, and the big vehicle leaped ahead parallel to the ravine and straight toward the road.

Jon watched the two pursuing attackers, who were trying to shortcut the road by sprinting among the trees. “They're getting close!”

Peter gave the running men a quick glance. The ravine made a sudden sharp turn away, and he angled the RV out of the trees and onto the road once more. With a relieved grin, he jerked the clumsy vehicle around and roared away down the dirt road, kicking up clouds of dust.

A final fusillade rang out, and bullets slashed through the trees around the fleeing vehicle. Jon forced himself to take a long breath and relax his hands on his weapon. He checked the side-view mirror: The two men had been joined by a third, and they stood angry and frustrated, their weapons dangling at their sides, in the center of the dusty road.

Jon recognized the short, burly man who had joined the first two.

“It's them,” he said angrily. “The people who've been trying to kill me.” He looked at Peter. “There'll be more of them somewhere.”

“Of course.” Peter studied the rough road as the vehicle continued to shake and bounce. “Evasive strategy, I should say. Knowledge of the terrain. Trust the enemy to overrate the element of surprise.”

Jon climbed back to Marty, hanging on to anything he could hold. But this time Marty was right ― the flesh wound in his left leg was superficial. Jon applied antibiotic and a bandage. One of the RV's windows had been shot out and the outer shell ripped with bullet holes in three places, but nothing had penetrated, and nothing important was damaged, especially not the computer that was part of Peter's standard equipment.

He rejoined Peter up front, and five minutes later heard the sound of traffic.

“What do you think?” He scrutinized the dirt road ahead as it wound down among the trees. “Will they be waiting where we join the highway?”

“Or sooner. Let's disappoint them.” Peter smiled his almost dreamy smile.

Ahead was a track that led off from the road to the left. Even narrower than the road they traveled, even more deeply rutted, it was only inches wider than the RV. But it was a road, not a trail.

Peter explained, “Fire road. Forest's full of them. Unmarked on any maps but the forestry service's and the fire district's.”

“We're taking it?” Jon asked.

“The scenic route.” With a short smile, Peter swung the RV onto it.

Pine branches brushed and scraped against the RV's metal sides. The noise was endless and unnerving, like fingers on a chalkboard. Fifteen minutes later, just as Jon was beginning to think he was going to lose his mind, he saw the end of the road.

“This it?” he asked Peter hopefully.

“What? Stop this lovely jaunt?” Peter turned the vehicle onto another fire road. “We're going downhill now, notice? Won't be long,” he said cheerfully. “Buck up, lad.”

This fire road was an equally tight squeeze. Overhanging branches continued to scratch the sides as Peter pressed the RV onward. Jon closed his eyes and sighed, trying to keep his skin from crawling. At least Marty was not complaining from the back. But then, Marty was on his meds. Thank God for at least that.

When they finally reached the highway, Jon sat up alertly. Peter paused the RV among the trees at the blacktop's edge. The horrible scratching and groaning stopped, and only the sound of the engine and the traffic marred the quiet beauty of the forest.

Jon peered around. “Any sign of them?” Traffic on the wide two-lane road in front of them was heavier than he'd expected. “This isn't I20.”

“U.S. 395. The big one on this side. Should do. See anyone lurking?”

Jon surveyed both directions. “No one.”

“Good. Neither do I. Which way?”

“Which way gets us to San Francisco faster?”

“To the right, and back on I20 through Yosemite.”

“To the right then, and I20.”

Peter's pale eyes twinkled. “Cheeky of you.”

“Going back the way we came should be the last thing they'd expect us to do, and all RVs look alike anyway.”

“Unless the ambushers read our plate.”

“Take the plates off.”

“Dammit, my boy. Should've thought of that.” Peter pulled a screwdriver and a set of Montana license plates from the glove compartment and jumped out.

Jon grabbed his Beretta and followed. He stood watch as Peter lifted off the old one and screwed on a license from Montana. In the tranquil forest, birds sang and insects buzzed.

Minutes later, both men returned inside.

Marty was sitting at the computer. He looked up. “Everything okay?”

“Absolutely,” Jon reassured him.

Peter put the RV into gear and said enthusiastically, “Let's bell the cat.”

He rolled the lumbering vehicle onto the highway heading south. When the I20 intersection appeared, he turned onto it, and they climbed back uphill. A quarter of a mile later they passed two SUVs parked along the dense forest, one on each side of the dirt road that led from the back of Peter's property.

At one of the SUVs, a tall, pockmarked man with hooded dark eyes and wearing a black suit spoke into a walkie-talkie. He seemed agitated, and he stared up the mountainside in frustration. He hardly glanced at the battered RV with the Montana plates as it climbed up the highway toward Yosemite.

“Arab,” Peter said. “Looks dangerous.”

“My conclusion, too.” Jon stared at the highway traffic. His voice was grave. “Let's hope I can find some answers in Iraq, and that you'll be able to track Bill Griffin and find out more about Sophia's death. Those erased phone calls could be critical.”

They drove on. Peter turned on the radio. It droned news of an unknowing world, while the approaching darkness cast its long, ominous shadows over the white peaks of the high Sierras ahead.