The Hades Factor

CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE

Like an accusation, the front page of The Washington Post lay on the big Cabinet Room oval table where the president had left it. Although none of the solemn cabinet chiefs who sat around the polished table and none of their assistants who packed the walls looked at the newspaper with its banner headline, everyone was painfully aware of it. They had awakened to find their own copies lying on their doorsteps, just as hundreds of millions of Americans had discovered similar terrifying headlines awaiting them. All day long the news had blared from their radios. On television, little else was discussed.

For days scientists and the military had kept the president and high officials informed, but not until now, when the so-called civilized world seemed to erupt with the news, had the full force of the growing epidemic hit home.

In the packed cabinet room, Secretary of State Norman Knight pushed his metal-rimmed glasses up on his long nose. His voice was sober. “Twenty-seven nations have reported fatalities due to the virus, a total so far of more than a half million. All began with symptoms of a heavy cold or mild flu for some two weeks, then it'd suddenly escalate into acute respiratory distress syndrome and death within hours, sometimes less.” He sighed unhappily. “Forty-two nations are reporting sudden cases of what appears to be a mild flu. We don't know yet whether that's the virus, too. We've barely started counting those victims, but they're in the high millions.”

A shocked hush greeted the secretary's figures. The packed room seemed to grow rigid.

President Samuel Adams Castilla's penetrating gaze traveled slowly over their faces. He was looking for clues into the minds of his cabinet chiefs. He had to know on whom he could count to remain steady and bring knowledge, wisdom, and the will to act. Who would panic? Who would be shocked into paralysis? Knowledge without the will to act was impotent. Will to act without knowledge was blind and reckless. And anyone with neither to offer needed to be dismissed.

Finally he spoke, keeping his voice composed. “All right, Norm. How many in the United States?”

The secretary of state's long face was topped by an unruly shock of thick white hair. “Beyond the nine cases early last week, the CDC reports some fifty more deaths and at least a thousand flulike cases that they're testing for the new virus right now.”

“It looks like we're getting off light,” said Admiral Stevens Brose, chairman of the Joint Chiefs. His voice was cautiously hopeful.

Too cautious and too hopeful, President Castilla reflected. It was strange, but he had noticed that military men were often the least willing to act on the instant. But then, they had seen the deadly consequences of ill-considered action more than most.

“That's so far,” Nancy Petrelli, secretary of Health and Human Services, pointed out ominously. “Which doesn't mean we won't be devastated tomorrow.”

“No, I suppose it doesn't,” the president agreed, a little surprised by the HHS secretary's negative tone. He had always found her to be the optimistic type. Probably a measure of the terror this virus was instilling in people and governments. That alone emphasized the need for action ― considered and meaningful action, yes, but some action, to mitigate the sense of helpless panic that could freeze everyone in its grip.

He turned to the surgeon general. “Anything new on where those six original cases contracted the virus, Jesse? A connection among them?”

“Aside from the fact that all were either in Desert Storm or related to someone who was, neither the CDC nor USAMRIID has been able to find anything.”

"Overseas?

“The same,” Surgeon General Jesse Oxnard admitted. “All the scientists agree they're stumped. They can see it in their electron microscopes, but the DNA sequence information so far doesn't offer any useful clues. It matches no known virus exactly, so they can only guess how to deal with it. They have no idea where it came from and nothing that'll cure or stop it. All they can suggest are the usual methods for treating any viral fever and then hope the mortality rate is no worse than the fifty percent we had in the first six cases.”

“At least that's something,” the president decided. “We can mobilize every medical resource in the advanced industrialized countries and send them all over the world. Medicines, too. Everything anyone needs or thinks they need.” The president nodded to Anson McCoy, secretary of defense. “You put the whole armed forces at Jesse's disposal, Anse, everything ― transports, troops, ships, whatever it takes.”

“Yessir,” Anson McCoy agreed.

“Within reason, sir,” Admiral Brose warned. “There are some nations that might try to take advantage if we put too many resources into this. We could leave ourselves open to attack.”

“The way it's going, Stevens,” the president said dryly, “there might not be much left to attack or defend anywhere. It's a time for new thinking, people. The old answers aren't working. Lincoln said something like that in a crisis a long time ago, and we may damn well be approaching the same kind of crisis now. Kenny and Norman have been trying to tell us that for years. Right, Kenny?”

Secretary of the Interior Kenneth Dahlberg nodded. “Global warming. Environmental degradation. Destruction of the rain forests. Migration from rural areas all across the Third World. Overpopulation. It's all leading to the emergence of new diseases everywhere. That means a lot of deaths. This epidemic may be only the tip of the iceberg.”

“Which means we've got to put everything into stopping it,” the president said. “As must every industrialized country.” Out of the corners of his eyes he saw Nancy Petrelli open her mouth as if to object. “And don't tell me how much it's going to cost, Nancy. That doesn't matter at this point.”

“I agree, sir. I was going to offer an idea.”

“Okay.” The president tried to control his impatience. In his mind he was gearing up for action. “Tell us what's on your mind.”

“I disagree that all scientists have nothing to suggest. My office had a call not an hour ago from a Dr. Victor Tremont, chairman and CEO of Blanchard Pharmaceuticals. He said he couldn't be absolutely certain, having never tested it against the new virus, but the description he's heard of the virus and its symptoms seems to closely match a monkey virus his company's been working with for some years.” She paused for effect. “They have developed a serum that cures it most of the time.”

There was a stunned moment. Excitement exploded in a cacophony of conflicting voices. They bombarded the HHS secretary with questions. They objected to the possibility. They thrilled at a cure.

Finally the president slammed his fist onto the table. “Hold it, dammit! All of you, shut up!”

The cabinet room almost vibrated with the abrupt silence. The president glared at each of them, allowing time for the room to calm. Tension was palpable, and the ticking of the clock on the mantel seemed as loud as thunder.

Finally, President Castilla returned his hard gaze to the HHS secretary. “Let's hear that again straight out and in fewer words, Nancy. Someone thinks they have a cure for this thing? Where? How?”

Nancy Petrelli glanced with considerable animosity toward her fellow cabinet members and the other advisers who were ready to jump on her again. “As I said, sir, his name is Victor Tremont. He's CEO and chairman of Blanchard Pharmaceuticals, a large international biomedical company. He says a team at Blanchard has developed a cure against a virus found in monkeys from South America. Animal testing has been highly positive, a veterinary use patent has been granted, and everything's under review by the FDA.”

Surgeon General Oxnard frowned. “It hasn't been approved by the FDA even for animals?”

“Or ever tested on humans?” Secretary of Defense McCoy demanded.

“No,” the HHS secretary said, “they had no intention of using it on humans. Dr. Tremont thinks this unknown virus may be the same monkey virus but contracted now by humans, and I'd say ― considering the circumstances ― we'd be idiots not to investigate further.”

“Why would anyone develop a cure for a monkey virus?” the secretary of commerce wanted to know.

“To learn how to combat viruses in general. To develop mass production techniques for the future,” Nancy Petrelli told them. “You've just heard Ken and Norman say emerging viruses are an increasing danger to the world with all the access to what were once remote areas. Today's monkey virus can be tomorrow's human epidemic. I'd say we can all appreciate that now, can't we? Maybe we should consider the possibility that a monkey-virus cure just might cure humans, too.”

The hubbub erupted again.

“Too damn dangerous.”

“I think Nancy's right. We don't have a choice.”

“FDA would never allow it.”

“What do we have to lose?”

“A lot. It could be worse than the disease.”

And: “Does it sound a little funny to anyone else? I mean, a cure for an unknown disease just appearing out of nowhere?”

“Come on, Sam, they've obviously been working on it for years.”

“A lot of pure research doesn't have a practical use at first, then suddenly it does.”

Until the president again banged the table.

“All right! All right! We'll discuss it. I'll listen to any and all objections. But right now, I want Nancy and Jesse to go to this Blanchard Pharmaceuticals and check it out. We have a disaster on our hands, and we certainly don't want to make it any worse. At the same time, we could use a miracle right about now. Let's all hope to hell this Tremont knows what he's talking about. Let's do more. Let's pray he's right before half the world is wiped out.” He stood up. “All right, that's it. We all know what we have to do. Let's do it.”

He strode from the room with a far more positive stride and manner than he felt. He had young children of his own, and he was frightened.

In the soundproof backseat of her long black limousine, Nancy Petrelli spoke into her cell phone. “I waited until the situation appeared to be as grim as possible, as you suggested, Victor. When I saw that everyone was ready to concede all we could do was put on Band-Aids and hand out a lot of TLC, I dropped our bombshell. There was a lot of gnashing of teeth, but in the end I'd say the president's position is, basically, he's ready to take any help he can get.”

“Good. Intelligent.” Far away in the Adirondacks, Tremont smiled in his office above the placid and peaceful lake. “How is Castilla going to handle it?”

“He's sending me and the surgeon general up to talk to you and report back.”

“Even better. We'll put on a science-and-humility show for Jesse Oxnard.”

“Be careful about it, Victor. Oxnard and a few others are suspicious. With the president looking for anything positive, they won't do more than mutter, but give them any suggestion that something isn't right and they'll pounce.”

“They'll find nothing, Nancy. Trust me.”

“What about our colonel Jon Smith? Is he out of the picture?”

“You can count on it.”

“I hope so, Victor. I really hope so.”

She clicked off and sat in the dark limo, her manicured fingers tapping rapidly against the armrest. She was excited and afraid. Excited that everything appeared to be going exactly as planned, and afraid that something… some small chink they had forgotten or ignored or had not dealt with… could go wrong.

In his office, Victor Tremont looked out at the distant dark shadows of the high Adirondacks. He had reassured Nancy Petrelli, but he was having a harder time reassuring himself. After al-Hassan missed Smith and his two friends in the Sierras, all three had vanished. What he hoped was that they had gone into hiding and posed no further threat that they were hunkered down, afraid for their lives.

But Tremont could take no chances. Besides, from every piece of information he had been able to learn about Smith, it seemed obvious to him that Smith was not the type to give up. Tremont would continue to keep everyone watching for him. Smith's chances of doing damage, or even surviving, were not good. Tremont shook his head. For a moment he felt a chill. A not-good chance with a man like Smith was not the same as no chance at all.

CHAPTER TWENTY SIX

Once considered the cradle of civilization, the city of Baghdad sprawled on a dry plain between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers. A metropolis of contrasts, it seemed to shudder in the morning light. From turquoise-tiled domes and minarets, muezzin wailed across the rooftops of the exotic city, calling the faithful to prayer. Women dressed in long abayas glided like black pyramids through the narrow byways of the old suq and toward the glassy, modern high-rises of the new city.

This ancient city of myth and legend had been invaded many times across the millennia ― by Hittites and Arabs, Mongols and the British ― and each time it had survived and triumphed. But after a decade of U.S.-led sanctions, that long history seemed irrelevant. Life in Saddam Hussein's shabby Baghdad was a day-to-day struggle for the basics ― food, clean water, and medicine. Vehicles lumbered along palm-lined boulevards. Smog stank the sweet desert air.

Jon Smith had been thinking about all this as the taxicab had rushed him through the gray city streets. Now as he paid off the driver, he looked carefully around at a once-expensive neighborhood. No one appeared too curious. But then, he was dressed as a U.N. worker with an official U.N. armband and a plastic identification badge snapped to his jacket. Also, taxis were everywhere in this grim, embattled city. Driving a cab was one of the few occupations most middle-class Iraqis were already prepared to do: They still had at least one operating family car, and Saddam Hussein kept the price of gas low, less than ten U.S. cents a liter.

As the driver sped away, Smith surveyed the street again and warily strode across to what had once been the American embassy. The windows were shuttered, and the building and grounds were in disrepair. There was a sense of abandonment about the compound, but Jon pushed on through. He rang the bell.

The United States still had a man in Baghdad, but he was Polish. In 1991, at the end of the Gulf War, Poland assumed control of the imposing American embassy on P Street Northwest. Since then, even when U.S. bombs and missiles fell, Polish diplomats held forth from the embassy, representing not only their nation's interests in Iraq, but America's. From the great shuttered embassy, they handled passport questions, reported on local media, and occasionally passed sub-rosa messages between Washington and Baghdad. As in all wars, there were times when even enemies needed to communicate, which was the only reason Saddam Hussein tolerated the Poles. At any moment, the mercurial Hussein could change his mind and imprison them all.

The embassy's front door swung open to show a big man with a snub nose, thick gray hair, and shaggy eyebrows that were lowered over intelligent brown eyes.

He fit the description Peter had given Jon. “Jerzy Domalewski?”

“The same. You must be Peter's friend.” The door swung open wider, and the diplomat's gaze took in the tall American with one savvy glance. In his midforties, he wore a brown suit that sagged as if it had gone too long between cleanings. He spoke in Polish-accented English. “Come in. No point in making ourselves into bigger targets than we already are.” He closed the door behind Jon and led him across a marble foyer into a large office. “You are sure no one followed you?” He liked the level look in the stranger's dark blue eyes and the sense of physical power he radiated. He would need both attributes in perilous Baghdad.

Instantly Smith caught the whiff of fear. “MI6 knows what it's doing. I won't bore you with the circuitous route they used to get me into the country.”

“Good. Do not tell me.” Domalewski nodded as he closed the office door. “There are secrets no one should know. Not even me.” He gave a small, wry smile. “Take a chair. You must be weary. That one with the arms is comfortable. Still has its springs.” As Jon sat, the diplomat continued on to the window where he cracked open the shutter and stared outside at the morning. “We must be so careful.”

Jon crossed his legs. Domalewski was correct: He was tired. But he also felt a pounding need to get on with his investigation. Sophia's beautiful face and the agony of her death haunted him.

Three days ago, he had arrived at London's Heathrow airport in the early hours of the morning dressed in new civilian clothes he had bought in San Francisco. It was the beginning of a long, grueling journey. At Heathrow, an MI6 agent sneaked him into a military ambulance that had whisked him to some RAF base in East Anglia. From there he had been flown to a desert airstrip in Saudi Arabia and picked up by a nameless and taciturn British SAS corporal dressed in long Bedouin robes who spoke perfect Arabic.

“Put these on.” He tossed Jon robes identical to his. “We're going to take advantage of a little-known prewar agreement.” It turned out he was talking about the Iraqi-Saudi Arabian Neutral Zone, which the two nations still maintained so their nomadic Bedouins could continue their historic trade routes.

In the sweltering robes, Jon and the corporal were handed from Bedouin camp to Bedouin camp by the Iraqi underground until on the outskirts of Baghdad the corporal surprised him with fake identity papers. Iraqi dinars, Western clothing, and a badge and armband for a U.N. worker from Belize. Jon's cover name was Mark Bonnet.

He had shaken his head, amazed at MI6's thoroughness. “You've been holding out.”

“Hell, no,” the corporal said indignantly. “Didn't know whether you'd make it. No point wasting good ID on a bloody corpse.” He pumped Jon's hand in farewell. “If you ever see that arse Peter Howell again, tell him he owes us all a whopper.”

Now Jon sat in the former American embassy, dressed like a typical U.N. worker in his brown cotton slacks, short-sleeved shirt, zippered jacket, and the all-important U.N. armband and badge. He had money and additional identification in his pocket.

“Do not take our concern personally,” Domalewski was saying as he continued to study the street. “You cannot blame us for not being especially enthusiastic about helping you.”

“Of course. But be assured ― this may be the most crucial risk you've ever taken.”

Domalewski nodded his shaggy head. “That was in the message from Peter. He also gave me a list of doctors and hospitals you wished to visit.” The Pole turned from the window, his thick eyebrows raised. Again he considered the American. His old friend Peter Howell had said this man was a medical doctor. But could he handle himself if violence struck? It was true that from his high-planed face to his broad shoulders and trim waist, he looked more like a sniper than a healer. Domalewski considered himself an apt judge of people, and from everything he could see about this undercover American, perhaps Peter had been right.

Jon asked, “You've arranged meetings?”

“Of course. I will drive myself to some. Others you must handle yourself.” The diplomat's voice became a warning: “But remember your U.N. credentials will be useless if you fall into the government's hands. This is a police state. Many citizens are armed, and anyone can be a spy. Hussein's private police force ― the Republican Guard ― is as brutal and powerful as the SS and Gestapo combined. They're always sniffing for enemies of the state, dissenters, or simply someone whose looks they do not like.”

“I understand they can be random.”

“Ah, so you do know something about Iraq.”

“A bit.” Smith nodded grimly.

Domalewski cocked his head, continuing to appraise the American. He went behind his desk and pulled out a drawer. “Sometimes the greatest danger is the very arbitrariness of it all. Violence here erupts in a heartbeat, often for no logical reason. Peter said you should have this.”

He sat in an armchair next to Jon and held out another U.S. Army Beretta.

Smith took it eagerly. “He thinks of everything.”

“As my father and I both found in our time.”

“Then you've worked with him before.”

"More than once. Which is why I am doing him the favor of helping you.

He had wondered why Domalewski had agreed. “Thanks to both of you.”

“I hope you will still thank us tomorrow or the next day. Peter says you are adequate with the Beretta. Do not hesitate to use it if you must. However, remember any foreigner caught with a gun will be arrested.”

“I appreciate the warning. I plan to avoid that.”

“Good. Have you heard about the Justice Detention Center?”

“Sorry, no.”

Domalewski's voice dropped, and horror infused his words. “The existence of the detention center was confirmed just recently. It is six stories deep into the ground. Imagine that ― no windows for the world to look in, no exterior walls for the cries of the tormented to be heard through, and no hope of escape. Iraqi military intelligence built it under the hospital near the al-Rashid military camp south of here. They say Qusai, Saddam's insane son, supervised the design and construction himself. Military officers and personnel who displease Saddam have an entire floor of torture and execution chambers reserved for them. Other prisoners can be sent to a level where they officially do not exist. They cannot be asked about. Their names cannot even be mentioned. Those sad creatures are disappeared and lost forever. But for me, the worst part of the underground building… the most grisly and somehow savage… is on the bottom floor. There Saddam has not only dungeons but an appalling fifty-two gallows.”

Jon repressed a shudder. “Good God. Fifty-two gallows? Mass executions. He hangs fifty-two at a time? The whole place sounds like a piece of hell. The man's an animal!”

“Exactly. Remember, it is better to use the gun than to be caught with it. At best, the confusion might give you a chance.” He hesitated. He clasped his hands and looked up at Jon, his eyes dark with concern. “You are undercover, unofficial, and unprotected. Oh, yes, they would arrest you, and, if you were very lucky, they would kill you quickly.”

“I understand.”

“If you still wish to proceed, you have a lot of territory to cover today. We must leave immediately.”

For a brief hallucinogenic moment, in his mind Smith saw Sophia's tortured face as she fought to live. The glistening sweat on her flushed cheeks… her silky hair matted down… her quivering fingers desperately reaching for her throat as she tried to breathe. Her pain had been excruciating.

As he studied the grave face of Domalewski, what he was really thinking about was the only woman he had ever loved and her terrible, inexplicable, needless, criminal death. For Sophia, he could handle anything. Even Iraq and Saddam Hussein.

He stood up. “Let's go.”

CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN

Alone in the backseat of the American embassy's only operating limousine, Jon looked out on the bustling city and noted with disgust one consistent feature ― the photographs of Saddam Hussein. From towering billboards to wall-size posters to framed pictures in dingy storefront windows, Hussein with his thick black mustache and toothy smile was everywhere. Cradling a child. Heroically facing off against America's new president. Leading a family gathering or a businessmen's group. Proudly saluting goose-stepping troops.

In this once-legendary land of learning and culture, Hussein's steel-fisted rule was stronger than ever. He had turned his nation's state of war into the basis of his power, and the wretchedness of his people into patriotic pride. While he blamed the U.N.'s embargo ― “al-hissar” ― for causing a million of his people to die of malnutrition, he and his cronies had grown shamelessly fat and rich.

Jonathan's disgust only deepened when they reached the elegant Jadiriya suburb, where many of Hussein's courtiers, sycophants, and war profiteers had settled in splendor. As Jerzy Domalewski drove, they cruised past showy mansions, fine cafés, and glitzy boutiques. Polished Mercedeses, BMWs, and Ferraris lined the curbs. Servants in livery stood guard outside pricey restaurants. Poverty had been banished, but human greed was everywhere.

Smith shook his head. “This is criminal.”

Domalewski was wearing a chauffeur's cap and jacket. “Considering what the rest of Baghdad looks like, entering Jadiriya is akin to landing on another planet. A very rich planet. How can these people stand to live within their selfish skins?”

“It's unconscionable.”

“Agreed.” The Polish diplomat stopped the limo in front of an attractive stucco building with a blue-tile roof. “This is it.” The engine idling, he glanced back over his shoulder. His face was solemn and anxious. “I will wait. Unless, of course, you run out of there with the Republican Guards on your backside. I have only the smallest worry of this, you understand. Still, if such an unfortunate event should occur, please do not be insulted if all you see is the exhaust from this vehicle's tailpipe.”

Smith gave a brief smile. “I understand.”

The graceful building housed the offices of Dr. Hussein Kamil, a prominent internist. Smith stepped out into the warm sunshine, looked warily around, and strode through a line of date palms toward the carved wood door. Inside, the waiting room was cool and empty. Smith took in the rich rugs, draperies, and upholstered furniture. He studied the closed doors, wondering how safe he was and whether he would find answers here. Despite the doctor's apparent affluence, he was not doing as well as he might. Iraq's economic isolation showed in small ways. The draperies were faded and the furniture worn. The magazines on the side tables were five and ten years old.

One of the doors opened, and the doctor appeared. He was a man of medium height, in his early fifties, with a swarthy complexion and nervous, darting eyes. He wore a white medical coat over pressed gray trousers. And he was alone. No nurse. No receptionist. Obviously he had timed Smith's appointment to make certain no one would witness it.

“Dr. Kamil.” Jon introduced himself by the fake name on his U.N. papers ― Mark Bonnet.

The doctor inclined his head politely, but his voice was low and uneasy. “You have your bona fides?” He spoke English with a British upper-class accent.

Jon handed over the forged U.N. identification. Dr. Kamil had been told Jon was part of a worldwide team investigating a new virus. The doctor led him into an examination room where he studied the credentials as carefully as he would evidence of cancer.

As he waited, Jon looked around ― white walls, chromed equipment, two wood stools, and a table painted white where the short stubs of pencils lay in a pottery bowl. The medical equipment showed the effects of years of use without replacement. Everything was clean and shiny, but there were empty stands where test tubes should be waiting. The white cloth that covered the examination table was thin and eaten with tiny holes. Some of the equipment was very out of date. That would not be the only problem this doctor ― all the doctors of Iraq ― faced. Domalewski had said many were graduates of the world's finest medical schools and continued to provide good diagnoses, but their patients had to find their own drugs. Medicine was available mostly on the black market and not for dinars. Only for U.S. dollars. Even the elite had trouble, although they were willing to pay astronomical sums.

Finally the doctor returned the paperwork. He did not invite Jon to sit, and he did not sit himself. They stood in the middle of the spartan, run-down room and conversed, two suspicious strangers.

The doctor said, “What exactly is it you wish to know?”

“You agreed to talk to me, Doctor. I assume you know what you wanted to say.”

The doctor waved that off. “I cannot be too careful. I am close to our great leader. Many members of the Revolutionary Council are my patients.”

Jon eyed him. He looked like a man with a secret. The question was whether Smith could find some way to convince him to reveal it. “Still, something's bothering you, Dr. Kamil. A medical matter, I'd say. I'm sure it has nothing to do with Saddam or the war, so it should be no danger to either of us to discuss it a moment. Perhaps,” he said carefully, “it's the deaths from an unknown virus.”

Dr. Kamil chewed on his lower lip. His ebony eyes were troubled. He glanced almost pleadingly around as if he feared the walls themselves would betray him. But he was also an educated man. So he sighed and admitted, “A year ago I treated a patient who died of sudden acute respiratory distress syndrome with hemorrhaging from the lungs. He had contracted what appeared to be a heavy cold two weeks before the ARDS.”

Jon repressed excitement. They were the same symptoms as the victims in the United States. “Was he a veteran of Desert Storm?”

The doctor's eyes radiated fear. “Do not say that!” he whispered. “He had the honor of fighting with the Republican Guard during the Glorious War of Unification!”

“Any chance his death resulted from biological warfare agents? We know Saddam had them.”

“That is a lie! Our great leader would never permit such weapons. If there were any, they were brought in by the enemy.”

“Then could his death have been caused by the enemy's biological agents?”

“No. Not at all.”

“But your patient was infected sometime during the war?”

The doctor nodded. His swarthy face was anxious. “He was an old family friend, you see. I gave him a complete physical every year of his life. You can never be too careful about health in a backward nation such as ours.” The fearful eyes swept the room; he had insulted his country. “Not long after he returned to his normal life he began to show many svinptoms of minor infections that failed to respond to normal treatment but disappeared anyway. Over the years, he had increasing fevers and brief flulike episodes. Then he developed the heavy cold and died abruptly.”

“Were there other deaths in Iraq from the virus then?”

“Yes. Two more here in Baghdad.”

“Also veterans from the war?”

“So I have been told.”

“Was anyone cured?”

Dr. Kamil crossed his arms and nodded miserably. “I have heard rumors.” He did not look at Jon. “But in my opinion, those patients simply survived their ARDS. Other than untreated rabies virus, no virus kills one hundred percent. Not even Ebola.”

“How many survived?”

“Three.”

Three and three again. The evidence was piling up, and Jon fought back both his excitement and his horror. He was uncovering information that pointed more and more to an experiment using human guinea pigs. “Where are the survivors?”

At that, the frightened doctor stepped back. “No more! I do not want you going elsewhere and having survivor data traced back to me.” He yanked open the door of the examination room and pointed at another door across the hallway. “Go. Leave!”

Jon did not move. “Something made you want to tell me, Doctor. And it's not three dead men.”

For a moment the doctor looked as if he could jump out of his skin. “Not another word! Nothing! Leave here! I do not believe you are from Belize or from the U.N.!” His voice rose. “One phone call to the authorities and―”

Jon's tension escalated. The terrified doctor looked as if he might explode, and Jon could not take the chance that he would be trapped in the consequences. He slipped out the side door and along an alley. With relief, he saw the embassy limousine still waited.

In his office, Dr. Hussein Kamil shook with fear and anger. He was furious to have put himself in this position, and he was afraid he would be caught. At the same time, this wretched situation offered an opportunity, if he dared take it.

He bowed his head, crossed his arms, and tried to quiet his tremors. He had a large family to support, and his country was disintegrating as he watched. He had the future to think of. He was tired of being poor in a land where plenty was to be had.

At last he picked up the phone. But it was not the authorities he dialed.

He inhaled. “Yes, Dr. Kamil here. You contacted me about a certain man.” He steadied his voice. “He has just left my office. He carries the credentials of a U.N. employee from Belize. The name is Mark Bonnet. However, I feel certain he is the one you asked me to watch for. Yes, the virus from the Glorious War of Unification…. That was what he asked about. No, he did not say where he was going. But he was very interested in the survivors. Of course. I am most grateful. I will expect the money and the antibiotics tomorrow.”

He dropped the receiver into its cradle and fell into his chair. He sighed and felt better. So much better that he allowed himself a faint smile. The risk was high, but the payoff was, with luck, more than worth it. By making this one call, he was about to become a rarity in Baghdad: He would have his own private supply of antibiotics.

He rubbed his hands. Optimism coursed through his veins.

The rich would crawl to him when they or their children fell ill. They would throw money at him. Not dinars, which were useless in this benighted land in which he had been imprisoned since the stupid Americans began their war and embargo. No, the wealthy sick would shower him with U.S. dollars. Soon he would have more than enough to pay for his family's escape and a fresh life somewhere else. Anywhere else.

Night fell slowly across exotic Baghdad. A woman shrouded from head to toe in the ubiquitous abaya scuttled like a black spider beneath candlelit second stories and balconies on the narrow, cobbled street. In Baghdad's sizzling summers, these overhangs provided shade to the oldest sections of the city. But now it was a cool October night, and a swath of stars showed in the narrow opening above.

The woman glanced up only once, so concentrated was she on her two missions that lay ahead. She appeared old. She was terribly bent over, probably not only from age but malnutrition ― and she carried a frayed canvas gym bag. Besides the body-cloaking black abaya, she wore a traditional white pushi that covered most of her face and revealed only her dark eyes, which were neither properly downcast nor idle.

She hurried past bay windows ― mashrabiyah ― with carved-wood screens that allowed viewing out onto the street but not in. At last she turned onto a winding thoroughfare lighted by wavering antique street lamps and filled with the babble of voices ― struggling shopkeepers desperate to sell their few wares, would-be consumers with subsistence dinars, and barefoot children running and shouting. No one gave her more than a cursory glance. The place bustled in a final surge of energy as the traditional closing hour of 8:00 P.M. approached.

Then a trio of Saddam Hussein's feared Republican Guards in their distinctive dark-green fatigues and webbed weapon belts appeared.

She tensed as they approached. To her left, among the row of open-air stands steaming in the cool night air, was a farmer hawking fresh fruit from the countryside. A crowd had gathered, fighting over who could buy and at what price. Instantly she pulled dinars from her voluminous abaya, slid into the throng, and added her voice to those calling for the farmer's merchandise.

Her heart pounded as she studied the muscular guards from the corners of her eyes.

The three men stopped to watch. One made a comment, and another responded, secure in their weapons and well-fed existence. Soon they were laughing and sneering.

The woman sweated as she continued to beg the farmer for fruit. Around her, other Iraqis glanced nervously over their shoulders. While most resumed their clamor, some slunk furtively away.

That was when the guards chose their victim: A baker with an armload of bread loaves piled high, his face tucked behind to hide, had backed off and was skirting the crowd. The woman did not recognize him.

With hard gazes, the trio surrounded the baker, their pistols drawn. One knocked away the loaves. Another crashed his gun across the baker's panicked face.

Hidden in the woman's canvas bag was a gun. Every fiber of her wanted to pull it out and kill the brutal guards. Hidden by her pushi, her face flushed with rage. She bit her lip. She wanted desperately to act.

But she had work to do. She must not be noticed.

There was an abrupt hush on the busy street. As the baker fell, people averted their gazes and moved away. Bad things happened to anyone who attracted the attention of the mercurial guards. Blood poured from the fallen man's face, and he screamed. Sickened, the woman watched two of the guards grab his arms and drag him off. He had been publicly arrested, or perhaps he was simply being harassed. There was no way to know. His family would use whatever clout they had to try to free him.

A full minute passed. Like the lull before a sudden desert storm, the night air seemed heavy and ominous. There was little relief knowing the volatile guards had chosen someone else. Next time, it could be you.

But life went on. Sound returned to the winding street. People reappeared. The farmer took the money from the woman's palm and left an orange. With a shiver, she dropped it next to the gun in her canvas gym bag and sped off, uneasily scanning all around while in her mind she still saw the terrified face of the poor baker.

At last she turned onto Sadoun Street, a commercial thoroughfare with high-rises taller than all the minarets on the far bank of the Tigris. But this wide boulevard now contained few upscale goods and even fewer buyers who could afford them. Of course, no tourists came to Baghdad anymore. Which was why when she finally entered the modern King Sargon Hotel, she found a vast emptiness. The once-magnificent lobby with its obsidian and chrome had been designed by Western architects to combine the culture of the ancient kingdoms with the most up-to-date conveniences of the West. Now, in the shadows of poor lighting, it was not only scruffy but deserted.

The tall bellman with large dark eyes and a Saddam Hussein mustache was whispering angrily to the bored desk clerk. “What has the great leader done for us, Rashid? Tell me how the genius from Tikrit has destroyed the foreign devils and made us all rich. In fact, so rich my Ph.D. adorns this worn-out bellman's suit” ― he pounded his chest in outrage ― “in a hotel where nobody comes, and my children will be lucky to live long enough to have no future!”

The clerk responded gloomily, “We will survive, Balshazar. We always have, and Saddam will not live forever.”

Then they noticed the bent-over old crone standing quietly before them. She had arrived softly, like a puff of smoke, and for a moment the desk clerk felt disoriented. How could he have missed her? He stared, catching a brief glimpse of sharp black eyes over the pushi. Quickly she lowered her gaze in the presence of men not her husband.

He frowned.

She made her voice humble and frightened, and she spoke in perfect Arabic: “A thousand pardons. I have been sent to be given the sewing for Sundus.”

With the sound of her fear, the desk clerk recovered his disdain and jerked his head toward a service door behind him. “You should not be in the lobby, old woman. Next time, go around to housekeeping. The back is where you belong!”

Murmuring words of apology, she dropped her head and brushed past the Ph.D. bellman named Balshazar. As she did, her unseen hand slid a folded paper into the pocket of his frayed uniform.

The bellman gave no indication of it. Instead, he asked the haughty desk clerk, “What about the electricity? What is the schedule for its being turned off tomorrow?” Unconsciously he laid a protective hand over the pocket.

As the woman disappeared through the service door, she heard the rise and fall of the men's voices resume. Inwardly she sighed with relief: She had successfully completed her first mission. But the danger was far from over. She had one more crucial errand.

CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT

A sharp wind off the desert blew through nighttime Baghdad, sending home shoppers on Sheik Omar Street. The spicy scents of incense and cardamom were in the brisk air. The sky was black, and the temperature was dropping. The bent old woman in the black abaya and face-hiding pushi who had carried the message to the King Sargon Hotel threaded among pedestrians and past plywood stalls where used parts and Iraqi ingenuity for repair flourished. These days, many of the city's once comfortable middle-class manned these lowly stalls where everything from herbs to hot foods and used plumbing pipes were sold.

As the woman approached her destination, she stared, appalled. Her heart thudded against her ribcage. She could not believe her eyes.

Because the crowds had thinned, he stood out more than he would have under ordinary circumstances. Tall, trim, and muscular, he was the only northern European on the street. He had the same dark blue eyes, raven-black hair, and cool, hard face she remembered with such pain and anger. He was dressed casually in a windbreaker and brown trousers. And despite the U.N. armband, she knew he was no U.N. worker.

She would have covertly studied and analyzed him if he had been any European, an unusual sighting in today's Iraq. But this man was not just anyone, and for a split instant she stood paralyzed in front of the workshop. Then she quickly continued inside. Even the most experienced observer would have seen nothing in her manner but the slightest of hesitations. Yet her shock was profound.

What was he doing in Baghdad? He was the last person she expected or wanted to see: Lt. Col. Jonathan Smith, M.D.

On edge, Jon surveyed the street of plywood stalls and narrow repair shops. He had been slipping into medical offices and the storerooms of clinics and hospitals all day, talking to nervous doctors, nurses, and former medics from the war. Many had confirmed there had been six ARDS victims last year with the symptoms of the deadly virus Jon was investigating. But none could tell him about the three survivors.

As he strode along, he shrugged off a feeling he was being watched. He scrutinized the lamp-lit street with its faded bazaar shops and men in long loose shirts ― gallabiyyas ― who sat at scarred tables drinking glasses of hot tea and smoking water pipes. He kept his face casual. But this section of old Baghdad seemed an odd place to meet Dr. Radah Mahuk, the world-famous pediatric physician and surgeon.

Still, Domalewski's instructions had been specific.

Jon was getting desperate. The famed pediatrician was his last hope for the day, and to stay in Baghdad another twenty-four hours would increase his danger exponentially. Any of his sources could report him to the Republican Guard. On the other hand, the next informant might be the one to tell him where the virus had originated and what bastard had infected the Iraqis and Sophia.

Every nerve on edge, he paused outside a workshop where bald tires dangled from chains on either side of a low, dark door. This gloomy tire-repair shop was where Domalewski had sent him. According to the diplomat, it was owned by a formerly well-to-do Baghdad businessman who was bitter because his burgeoning company had been ruined by Saddam Hussein's unnecessary wars.

The store's seedy appearance did nothing to relieve Jon's suspicions. He glanced at his watch. He was on time. With a last look around, he stepped inside.

A short, balding man with rough skin and the usual thick black mustache stood behind a battered counter, reading a piece of paper. His thick fingers were stained with tar. Nearby, a woman wearing the usual fundamentalist black robes was shopping through tires.

“Ghassan?” Jon asked the man.

“Not here.” The Iraqi answered indifferently in heavily accented English, but the gaze that swept over Jon was shrewd.

Jon lowered his voice and glanced back at the woman, who had moved closer, apparently to examine a different group of tires. “I have to talk to him. Farouk al-Dubq told me he has a new Pirelli.” It was the coded signal Jerzy Domalewski had relayed to Jon. It should activate no outside interest because Ghassan's booming company on Rashid Street had specialized in the best new tires from around the world, and everyone knew he was a connoisseur.

Ghassan raised his brows in approval. He gave a brief smile, crumpled the piece of paper between his work-worn hands, and said heartily in much better English, “Ah, Pirelli. An excellent choice in tires. In the back. Come.” But as he turned to lead Jon, he muttered something in Arabic.

Suddenly, the hairs on the back of Jon's neck stood on end. He spun just in time to see the woman in the long black abaya slide like a shadow out the front door.

He frowned. His gut told him something was wrong. “Who ―?” he began.

But Ghassan was speaking urgently to him. “Please hurry. This way.”

They ran from the empty front through a thick-curtained doorway and into a cavernous storage room with so many piles of worn-out tires that they nearly blocked the rear entrance. One stack reached the ceiling. On the lowest mound near the room's center sat a middle-aged Iraqi woman cradling a baby. Fine wrinkles creviced her cheeks and high forehead. Her charcoal eyes focused on Jon with curiosity. She wore a long print dress, a black cardigan sweater, and a white cowl wrapped over her head and around her neck. But Jon's gaze was on the moist, feverish face of the baby. As it whimpered, he hurried toward it. Obviously the infant was sick, and all Jon's medical training demanded he help, whether or not this was a trap.

Ghassan spoke to the woman in rapid Arabic, and Jon heard his fake U.N. name mentioned. The woman frowned and seemed to be asking questions. Before Jon could reach the child, a violent crash sounded from the shop's front. Someone had kicked open the door. He froze, tense. Booted feet thundered, and a voice bellowed in Arabic.

A bolt of adrenaline shot through Jon. They had been betrayed! He pulled out his Beretta and whirled.

At the same time, Ghassan yanked out an old AK-47 assault rifle from the center of a pile of threadbare Goodyear tires and snapped, “Republican Guards!” He handled the AK-47 with a familiarity that told Jon this was not the first time he had used the powerful assault rifle to defend himself or his store.

Just as Jon started toward the noise, Ghassan ran in front to block him. Radiating hot rage, Ghassan jerked his head back at the middleaged woman with the sick infant. “Get them out of here. Leave the rest to me. This is my business.”

The resolute Iraqi did not wait to see what Jon would do. Determined, he sprang to the open archway, shoved the muzzle of his AK47 through the curtain, and opened fire with a series of short bursts.

The sound was thunderous. The plywood walls rocked.

Behind Smith, the woman cried out. The baby screamed.

Beretta in hand, Jon raced back through the stacks of tires toward them. The woman was already up with the baby in her arms, hurrying toward the rear door. Suddenly a fusillade of automatic fire from the front blasted into the storage room. Ghassan fell back and jumped behind a pile of tires. Blood poured from a wound on his upper arm. Jon pulled the woman and baby down behind a different stack of tires. Bullets thudded into the storage room and landed in the hard tires with radiating thunks. Rubber exploded into the air.

Behind his stack of tires, Ghassan was excitedly muttering his prayers: “Allah is great. Allah is just. Allah is merciful. Allah is―”

Another burst of violent automatic fire ripped the room. The woman ducked over the child to protect it, and Jon arched himself over both as wild bullets exploded bottles and jars on the shelves. Glittering shards of glass sprayed the storage area. Nuts, bolts, and screws that had been in the containers shot out like shrapnel. Somewhere an old toilet flushed spontaneously.

Jon had seen this before ― the stupid belief of ill-trained soldiers that brute firepower would subdue all opposition. The truth was, it would do little damage to a target entrenched or under cover. Through it all, Ghassan's frenzied voice continued to pray. As gunfire erupted again, Jon sat back on his heels and looked worriedly down at the woman, whose face was white with fear. Smith patted her arm, unable to reassure her in her own language. The baby cried, distracting the woman. She cooed soothingly down to it.

Abruptly, there was silence. For some reason, the Republican Guards were holding their fire. Then Jon knew why. Their booted footsteps hammered toward the curtained archway. They were going to rush the storage room.

“Praise Allah!” Ghassan leaped excitedly up from behind his pile of tires. He was grinning maniacally, and fire burned in his black eyes. Before Jon could stop him, he charged through the curtained doorway, his AK-47 blazing.

Screams and grunts from beyond the curtain echoed through the shop. The sound of scrambling and diving for cover. Then a sudden silence.

Jon hesitated. He should get the woman out of here, but maybe ―

Crouched low, instead he ran toward the curtained archway.

Another violent fusillade burst out beyond the curtain.

Jon hit the floor and crawled forward. As he reached the curtain, the barrage stopped. He held his breath and peered under the bottom of the dangling curtain of beads. As he did, a single rifle, like a small voice in the wilderness, tore out another series of defiant bursts. Ghassan lay behind a corner of the shop counter. He had the Republican Guards pinned down. Smith felt a surge of admiration.

Then he saw the Guards crawling through the shop to get behind where Ghassan held out. There were too many of them. The brave Iraqi could not survive much longer. Jon wanted desperately to help him. Maybe the two of them would be able to at least gain the time for everyone to escape.

Then he heard the vehicles outside on the narrow street.

They were bringing up reinforcements. It would be suicide.

He looked back at where the woman watched him. She held the baby and seemed to be waiting to see what decision he made. Ghassan had told him to save her. He was sacrificing his life not only to defend his business but to make certain she and the child escaped. Plus, Jon had a mission to complete, one that could save millions of people from a horrible death. Inwardly he sighed as he accepted the fact that he could not save Ghassan.

Once he decided, he did not wait. As the ear-splitting sounds of gunshots continued, Jon yanked open the splintered rear door. The screams of the injured in front echoed through the bullet-riddled shop. He gave the woman a reassuring smile, took her hand, and peered out into a dark alley so narrow and deep, even the wind had little room to blow. He tugged, pulling her behind, and slid out into the passageway.

Cradling the infant close in one arm, she followed as they ran two doors to the left. And froze.

Military vehicles screeched to a stop at both ends of the alley. Soldiers jumped out and pounded toward them. They were caught. Trapped in the Republican Guards' snare.

CHAPTER TWENTY NINE

Specialist Four Adele Schweik awoke with an abrupt start. Next to her ear pulsed the sharp, unnerving alarm from the sensor she had planted in the Russell woman's office a half-mile away at USAMRIID. Instantly alert, she turned off the annoying blast, jumped from bed, and activated the video camera she had also installed in the distant office.

In her dusky bedroom, she sat at her desk and stared at the monitor until a figure dressed in black appeared in Russell's office. Apprehensively she studied the intruder. He ― or she ― looked like an alien invader, but he moved with the fluidity of a cat, and a swift purpose that told Schweik he had broken into guarded buildings before. The figure wore an antiflash hood with respirator and a black flak vest. The vest was state-of-the-art-it would stop cold the bullets of most pistols and submachine guns.

As stiffly alert in her nightgown as she was in her daytime uniform, she stayed before the glowing screen long enough to be certain of the intruder's intention: He was conducting a thorough search of Sophia Russell's office. In a rush of adrenaline she yanked off her nightgown, dressed in her camos, and raced out to her car.

In a darkened RV a block from the entrance to Fort Detrick, Marty Zellerbach glared unhappily at his computer screen. His face was pinched with worry, and his soft body slumped in exaggerated despair. He had taken his Mideral seven hours ago, and as its effects had faded he had finished a brilliant program to automatically switch relay routes randomly, assuring no one could trace his electronic footprints ever again.

But that achievement had not led to success in either of his two main objectives: Sophia Russell's other phone calls, if they existed, remained stubbornly erased, and Bill Griffin's tracks had been too well covered.

He needed to find a creative solution, which was a challenge he would welcome under different circumstances. But now he was anxious. There was so little time, and the truth was… he had been working on both problems all along, and he still had no breakthrough on either. Plus there was the fact that he was frightened for Jon, who had willingly vanished into Iraq. And ― as much as he distrusted people in general ― he had no desire to see vast quantities of them erased, which was sure to be their fate if the virus was allowed to continue its rampage.

These were the moments he had spent his life avoiding: His well-honed self-interest had just collided with his deepest, darkest secret.

No one knew he harbored a streak of altruism. He never hinted at it and certainly would never admit it, but he actually thought kindly of human babies, old people with cantankerous dispositions, and adults who quietly did charity work without being paid. He also gave away his entire yearly trust income to a variety of worthy causes around the world. He made plenty to cover his living expenses by solving cyber-problems for individuals, companies, and the government, and he always had that pleasant savings account from which he had drawn fifty thousand dollars for Jon.

He sighed. He could feel the nervous edginess that told him he was close to needing another pill. But his mind ached to escape into the unknown where he could be his liberated, exciting self. As he thought that, bright colors flashed somewhere ahead on the horizon, and the world seemed to expand in ever-larger waves of possibilities.

This was that fertile time when he was close to losing control, and there was every reason he should. He had to figure out how to check Sophia Russell's phone logs for accuracy, and he desperately needed to find Bill Griffin.

Now was the time!

Relieved, he leaned back, shut his eyes, and happily launched himself into the starry world of his vast imagination.

Then a cold, hard voice that seemed to come from nowhere shocked him: “Should I have been the enemy, you would be dead.”

Marty jumped. He yelled, “Peter!” He turned. “You idiot! You could've given me cardiac arrest sneaking up like that!”

“Sitting duck,” Peter Howell grumbled and shook his head morosely. “That's what you are, Marty Zellerbach. Must be more alert.” He was reclining in a lounge chair, still dressed in the all-black uniform of an SAS counterterrorist commando. His gray antiflash hood lay in his lap. He had returned from his uneventful mission inside USAMRIID and reentered the RV without disturbing the air.

Marty was too angry to play the old spy's game. He longed for all this aggravation to end so he could return to his quiet bungalow where the most annoying event of the day was the arrival of the mail.

His lip curled in a sneer. “The door was locked, you moron. You're nothing but a common burglar!”

“An uncommon burglar.” Peter nodded sagely, ignoring Marty's pitying glare. “If I were the usual bumbling second-story man, we wouldn't be having this chat.”

After they had left Jon Smith at San Francisco International Airport, they had taken turns driving the RV cross-country, sleeping and eating in it so they could make the best time. Peter had shouldered the vast majority of the driving and the shopping to lessen Marty's complaining. Plus he had had to teach Marty to drive again, which had tried his patience. Even now he looked at the electronics genius and was not quite sure how the soft little man could feel superior, since he appeared to be so handicapped in daily life. Besides, he was bloody irksome.

Marty groused, “I hope to heaven you achieved better results than I.”

“Alas, no.” Peter's leathery face grimaced. “I found nothing of consequence.” Once they had reached Maryland, he had decided the wisest course was to start at the beginning with Sophia's lab and office, to be sure Jon had missed nothing. So he had parked the RV where it was now, donned his SAS commando gear, and slipped into Fort Detrick. He sighed. “Marty, my boy, I'm afraid we're going to need your unearthly electronic skills to dig into the poor lady's past. Can you break into her personnel file here at Detrick?”

Marty brightened, raised his hands above his head, and snapped his fingers as if they were castanets. “You have but to ask!” Moving with great speed, he tapped keys, watched the monitor, and minutes later sat back, crossed his arms, and shot a Cheshire-cat smile at Peter. “Tadah! Personnel file for Sophia Lilian Russell, Ph.D. Got it!”

Peter had been watching from the shadows, worrying as soon as Marty began talking in exclamation points. Thin and wiry, he slid across the RV's living room to lean over the computer monitor.

He said quietly, “Jon thinks there was something in the deleted report you recovered from the Prince Leopold Institute that Sophia considered important. That's why the report was erased and the page of her comments cut from her logbook.” He looked into Marty's shining green eyes. “What we need is anything that could tie into that report.”

Marty bounced up and down on his chair. “Not a problem! I'll print out the entire file.” Electric energy seemed to shoot from his pores, and a self-satisfied smile wreathed his face. “Got it! Got it!”

Peter clamped a hand on his shoulder. “Better take your Mideral pill, too. Sorry. Know you don't like 'em. Buck up, though. What we're about to do is a task for the boring part of both of our brains. At least you can medicate yours.”

With Sophia's file in front of them, Peter read the Prince Leopold report aloud as Marty checked it against the personnel file. Marty moved line by line, his mind working methodically, while Peter read and reread the report. The Mideral was a wonder drug, and its quick-acting effect had slowed Marty's speech and enabled him to sit quietly through the onerous task. He was acting like a courtly but gloomy gentleman.

As dawn approached, they had still found no link between Sophia's past activities and current contacts at USAMRIID.

“Right,” Peter acknowledged. “Take a step back. Where did she do her postdoc work?”

Marty peered at the file. “University of California.”

“Which one?”

If Marty had been off his meds, he would have thrown up his hands in despair at how poorly Peter was informed. Instead he simply gave a shake of his head. “Berkeley, of course.”

“Ah, yes. And they say we Brits are snobs. Can you crack that august institution, or do we have to drive all the way back to the West Coast?”

Marty raised his brows at Peter's idea of levity. He said in a measured, irritatingly slow voice, “Tell me, Peter, do we dislike each other as much when I'm off my meds?”

“Yes, my boy. We certainly do.”

With dignity, Marty inclined his head. “Thought so.” He sat at his computer, and ten minutes later Sophia's transcript at Berkeley was in his hands.

Peter read aloud the Prince Leopold report again.

Marty checked the transcript. “No names that match. No fieldwork. Her entire program was in human genetics, not virology.” He sat back, and the transcript slid off his knee. “It's hopeless.”

“Nonsense. As we Brits say, `We've not yet begun to fight.' ”

Marty frowned. “That was John Paul Jones against the British.”

“Ah, but technically he was still a Brit when he said it.”

Marty gave a gimlet smile. “You're still trying to hold on to the colonies?”

“Always did hate to give up a good investment. Very well, where did she do her doctoral studies?”

“Princeton.”

“Crack away.”

But the transcript of her doctoral studies showed her work to be far too extensive and lacking in detail to help. Her dissertation had no connection to viruses. Instead, she had researched the gene cluster that held the genetic mutation responsible for the missing tails of Manx cats.

Marty pointed out, “She took extensive field trips. That could be useful.”

“Agreed. Is a graduate adviser listed?”

“Dr. Benjamin Liu. Emeritus. He still teaches an occasional course, and he lives in Princeton.”

“Right,” Peter said. “I'll crank up this heap. We're off.”

Sunrise illuminated the autumn colors of trees and bushes as Peter and Marty drove north. They traded off driving to sleep and crossed the Delaware Memorial Bridge south of Wilmington and sped up the Jersey Turnpike past the bustling metropolises of Philadelphia and Trenton. When they entered Princeton, the sun was bright, and the tree leaves were vibrant shades of red, gold, and tangerine.

It was an old town, Princeton, a scene of battle during the Revolutionary War when the British headquartered here. It still retained the tree-lined streets and grassy meadows, the old houses and classic university buildings, and the elegant and peaceful atmosphere in which high learning and tranquil lifestyles were most comfortably pursued. The famed university and the historic town were symbionts, neither succeeding fully without the other.

Dr. Benjamin Liu lived on a side street heavily planted in maple trees whose leaves burned flame red, as if on fire. The sedate, three-story frame structure was shingled in that eastern seaboard wood color that is neither dark brown nor dark gray but somewhere in between, earned by years of bravely facing the elements.

Dr. Liu himself had a well-weathered face. Far from the cliché of an inscrutable Chinese courtier, he was tall and muscular, with the eyes and white drooping mustache of an ascetic Mandarin but the jutting chin, full cheeks, and ruddy complexion of a New England whaling captain. He was a fine blend of Chinese and Caucasian, and the walls of his study helped to show why. Hanging there were two portraits that appeared to be his parents. One was a tall, athletic, blond woman wearing a yachting cap and carrying a fishing rod, while the other showed a distinguished gentleman in the traditional robes of a Mandarin Chinese elder seated on the bow of a ship. On one side of the photographs hung mounted game fish, while on the other were displayed historic Chinese court badges of rank.

Dr. Liu had just finished his breakfast. He waved them to seats in the study. “So how can I help you? You spoke on the phone of Sophia Russell. I remember her well. A great student. Not to mention a hell of a looker. She was the only time I was tempted to dare the fates with a teacher-student affair.” He sank into a wing-back chair. “How is she, anyway?”

On his meds, Marty began one of his slow, methodical answers. “Well, Sophia Russell is―”

Peter gave in to impatience. “Right, Marty. My job here.” He focused on the retired professor. “She's dead, Doctor Liu. Sorry to be so blunt, but we're hoping you can help. She died from the new virus.”

“Dead?” Dr. Liu was shocked. “When? I mean, is it possible?” He looked from Peter to Marty and back to Peter. He shook his head, slowly at first, then vigorously. “But she was so… young.” He hesitated as if seeing Sophia's vitality. Then the rest of what Peter had said penetrated. “The new virus? It's a global disaster! I have grandchildren, and I'm frightened to death. It could wipe out half the species. What are we doing to stop it? Can anyone tell me?”

Peter's voice was reassuring. “Everyone's working around the clock, Professor. It's what Dr. Russell was researching.”

“Researching? So that's how she got the virus?”

“Perhaps. It's one of the things we're trying to ascertain.”

The professor's face was set in grim lines. “I can't imagine I can be of any help, but I'll try. Tell me what you want.”

Peter handed the one-page report to the professor. “This is from the Prince Leopold Institute of Tropical Diseases. Please read it and tell us if anything in there ties in with Dr. Russell's studies at Princeton. Classes, field trips, research, friends, any bloody thing that occurs to you.”

Professor Liu nodded. He took his time reading. He stopped often to think and remember. An old clock on the mantel of the study ticked loudly. He read the report again. And again.

Finally, he shook his head. “I see nothing here that strikes me as relating to Sophia's work or studies. She concentrated on genetics and, as far as I know, never took a field trip to anywhere in South America. Giscours didn't study at Princeton, and Sophia didn't study in Europe. I see no way they could've met.” He pursed his lips and glanced down at the report again. He raised his head. “But you know, I do recall… yes, a trip. In her undergraduate years. Not viruses, though.” He hesitated. “Damn, it's only something she mentioned in passing at an informal gathering.” He sighed. “I'm not going to be able to tell you more than that.”

Marty had been listening closely. Even when he was on his medication and his brilliant mind was tethered, he still tested smarter than ninety-eight percent of the human populace. Which increased his annoyance with Peter Howell. So just to prove he could, he forced himself to ask quickly: “Where was she an undergraduate?”

The professor looked at him. “Syracuse. But she wasn't studying biology then. So I don't see how that trip could possibly relate to Giscours and his report.”

Peter opened his mouth to speak, but Marty jumped in: “Something had better.” He felt a sudden chill and looked at Peter.

Peter gave a grimace of understanding. “It's our last chance.”

Specialist Four Adele Schweik sat in her small Honda watching the house. The heavy man, Maddux, sat in the passenger seat beside her. She had spotted the black-clothed intruder leave Fort Detrick and get into the RV parked on the street, and then she had followed them to Princeton. Now she needed to get back to her post at USAMRIID.

She told Maddux, “That's his RV over there. He looks and acts dangerous. Be careful. He's with another man who should give you no trouble. You can pick them up when they come out.”

“You reported to Mr. al-Hassan?”

“There wasn't time.”

Maddux nodded. “Okay, go. We'll take over.”

He stepped out of the car and hurried to his van. Schweik drove away without another glance at him or the RV.

CHAPTER THIRTY

The Adirondack mountain air was sweet and fresh, and the sun that morning cast long, damp shadows from the tall pines onto Blanchard Pharmaceuticals' sprawling complex. Inside the brick headquarters, Surgeon General Jesse Oxnard was impressed. He and HHS secretary Nancy Petrelli had finished a tour of Blanchard's labs and production facilities, conducted personally by Victor Tremont himself. The surgeon general had known of the company, of course, but it had always maintained a quiet profile, and he had had no idea of its great size or worldwide presence.

The two government officials met with senior staff over coffee and then rejoined Tremont in his grand, half-timbered office. A wall of windows overlooked the forested lake that gave the town its name. They settled into chairs beside Tremont's fireplace where wood burned in a comforting glow, and they listened attentively as Tremont enthusiastically described the origin of the promising experimental serum.

“…our microbiology people came to me with the proposal more than a decade ago, because at the time I was in charge of R&D. They predicted more and more diseases would emerge as Third World nations became more accessible and their populations burgeoned. In other words, fewer locations would be remote enough to confine deadly outbreaks. The industrial world would have no defenses against these plagues, which could be even more devastating than HIV-AIDS. My people hoped by working with some of the more obscure ones we'd learn not only valuable science but develop serums for hitherto incurable diseases. One of the viruses they concentrated on was fatal to a certain species of monkey that was an especially close genetic relative to humans. We developed a recombinant antiserum cocktail against that virus, and developed the biotechnology to produce the antibodies in bulk as a feasibility study on mass production techniques for the future.” He gazed earnestly at the pair. “It's the study I phoned you about, Secretary Petrelli. Now maybe that effort may help the world. At least, I certainly hope so.”

Jesse Oxnard was not sure. He was a big, robust man with heavy jowls and a thick mustache. He frowned. “But this development… this serum… is still essentially in the research stage. Isn't that so?”

An understanding smile spread across Tremont's tanned, aristocratic face. The firelight reflected in his iron-gray hair as he shook his head. “We're past both the animal-testing and the primate-testing stages. In fact, we've shown the serum cures the virus in affected monkeys. And, as I said, purely as a scientific study, we developed the facilities and techniques to produce it in bulk. In fact we have millions of doses already on hand. That's what prompted us to get the patent and apply for FDA approval for veterinary use.”

Nancy Petrelli watched the effect all this was having on the surgeon general, while at the same time she marveled at Victor Tremont's smooth telling of the concocted story. She almost believed it herself. Which reminded her to cover her back when dealing with Victor. She never let herself think he was her friend. At first he had needed her initial investment, and later he wanted her influence as a congresswoman and then as secretary of HHS. That was as warm and fuzzy as it got with Victor.

Nancy was a realist. She wore her silver hair short and efficient. She dressed in feminine but businesslike St. John's knits. And she never gambled unless she figured the odds were greatly in her favor. She was backing Victor Tremont and his high-class, high-powered con game because she believed he would pull it off. She was also well aware his crimes would be compounded by mass murder if he was caught, so she had decided to distance herself from any hint that she might have known what he was actually doing. At the same time, she fully expected him to triumph and make her rich.

As much for her own benefit as Oxnard's, she said, “Monkeys aren't people, Dr. Tremont.”

Victor glanced quizzically at her and agreed: “True. But in this case, they are very close genetically and physiologically.”

“Let me make certain I understand this.” Surgeon General Oxnard stroked his mustache. “You can't be sure the serum will cure people.”

Tremont answered solemnly, “Of course not. We won't know until it's actually tested on humans. But considering the situation, I think we need to try.”

The surgeon general frowned. “That's a huge obstacle. In fact, it's entirely possible we may discover the serum may cause harm.”

Tremont knit his fingers together and stared down at his hands. When he looked up, he said earnestly, “Well, one thing seems almost certain ― millions will die if we don't find a cure for this horrible virus.” He shook his head as if in an agony of indecision. “Don't you think I've wrestled with this exact problem? It's why I hesitated for two days to come forward. I had to be comfortable in my own mind I was doing the right thing. So the answer is yes, I'm convinced there's a very good chance our serum will cure this terrible epidemic. But how can I guarantee it won't create a greater suffering until it's tested?”

All three silently contemplated the dilemma. Jesse Oxnard knew he could not possibly recommend Tremont's serum for use without thorough testing, but at the same time he recognized he would look bold and decisive if it saved millions around the globe from certain death.

Nancy Petrelli continued to concern herself with herself. She knew the serum would work, but she had learned the hard way to never go out on the end of a political limb. She would position herself solidly on the side of caution and join the minority that would, in the end, she was sure, be overruled in Victor's favor.

Meanwhile Victor Tremont was worrying about Jon Smith and his two friends. He had heard no news about them from al-Hassan since the fiasco in the Sierras. As he thought that, he brought himself back to the present. He had a brave gesture in mind that he hoped would convince the surgeon general and, through him, President Castilla. But he had to time it just so.

As he looked up at Petrelli and Oxnard and their clouded faces deep in thought, he knew the time had come.

He must break the impasse. If he could not convince Surgeon General Oxnard, it was possible everything he had striven for over the past dozen years would be lost.

Inwardly he nodded grimly. He would not lose. He could not. “The only way to be sure is to test it on a human.” He leaned toward them, his voice commanding and grave. “We have isolated small quantities of the lethal monkey virus. It's unstable, but it can be preserved for a week or so.” He hesitated as if wrestling with a great moral question. “There's only one way to proceed. And please don't try to stop me ― there's too much at stake. We must think of the greater good, not just what we as individuals risk.” He paused again and inhaled. “I'll inject myself with the monkey virus―”

Surgeon General Oxnard flinched. “You know that's impossible.”

Tremont raised a hand. “No, no. Please let me finish. I'll inject myself with the virus, and then I'll take the serum. The monkey virus may not be exactly the same as the one that's spreading, but I believe it's close enough that we'd see any adverse side effects when I self-administer the serum. Then we'll know.”

“That's absurd!” Nancy Petrelli exclaimed, playing the devil's advocate. “You know we can't possibly allow you to do that.”

Jesse Oxnard hesitated. “You'd actually do that?”

“Absolutely.” Tremont nodded vigorously. “If it's the only way to convince everyone that our serum can stop what is rapidly becoming a horrible pandemic.”

“But―” Nancy Petrelli began, playing out her opposition.

The surgeon general shook his head. “It's not for us to decide, Nancy. Tremont is making a magnificent humanitarian offer. The least we can do is respect that and put his suggestion before the president.”

Petrelli frowned. “But, dammit, Jesse, we have no assurance the two viruses and the serum will interact the same way in the human body.” She saw Tremont again frown at her curiously, as if he doubted he had heard her accurately. “If Dr. Tremont is going to offer himself as our guinea pig, he should be infected with the real virus. Or, at least, we should test the two viruses to see if, perhaps, they are identical.”

Inside, Tremont seethed with rage. What the hell was she doing? She knew damned well the serum wasn't 100 percent effective ― no serum or vaccine was. He had this contingency covered, yes, but she didn't know that. Outwardly he continued to nod. “She's right, of course. That'd be best. But taking the time to compare viruses would be an unnecessary delay. I assure you I'm quite willing to be infected with the real virus. Our serum will cure it. I'm certain.”

“No.” The surgeon general slapped his knees in disagreement. “There's no way we can let you do that. But the families of the victims are already clamoring to be helped, so it makes more sense to ask them if they'd be willing to let their sick relatives try it. That way we'll find out what we need to know and maybe save a doomed life, too. Meanwhile, I'll have Detrick and the CDC compare the viruses.”

Petrelli objected, “The FDA will never approve.”

Oxnard countered, “They will if the president tells them to.”

“The director would probably resign first.”

“That's possible. But if the president wants the serum tested, it will be.”

Nancy Petrelli appeared to think about this. “I'm still against using the serum without the usual series of thorough tests. However, if we're going to go ahead, then it does make more sense to try to save someone who's already sick.”

The surgeon general stood up. “We'll call the president and present both suggestions. The sooner we start, the more lives we'll have a chance to save.” He turned to Victor Tremont. “Where can we phone in private?”

“I have a line in the conference room. Through that door.” Tremont nodded to a door in the right wall of his office.

“Nancy?” Jesse Oxnard asked.

“You make the call. No need for both of us. Tell him I concur in everything.”

As the surgeon general hurried out and closed the door, Victor Tremont swiveled in his chair to bestow a cold smile on the Health and Human Services secretary. “Covering your ass at my expense, Nancy?”

“Giving Jesse the negative to work against,” Nancy Petrelli shot back. “We agreed I'd do the nay-saying, so he focuses on the positive, the advantages.”

Tremont's tones gave no indication of his anger. “And a really good job it was, too. But, I think, more than a little self-protection, too.”

Petrelli bowed to him. “I learned from a master.”

“Thank you. But it does show a shocking lack of faith in me.”

She allowed herself a curt smile. “No, only in the vagaries of chance, Victor. No one has ever found a way to outwit chance.”

With that thought, Tremont nodded. “True. We do our best, don't we? Cover all possible contingencies. For example, I would insist we conduct the tests, and I assure you the virus would be harmless before it reached me. But there's always that little residue of chance left, isn't there. A risk for me.”

“There's risk for all of us in this project, Victor.”

Where the discussion would have taken them, Nancy Petrelli never found out. At that moment the door from the conference room opened, and Surgeon General Oxnard reentered the room, a great bear of a man with a relieved smile.

He said, “The president says he'll talk to FDA, but meanwhile we're to start looking for volunteers among the victims. The president is optimistic. One way or the other, we're going to test this serum and beat back this godawful virus.”

Victor Tremont laughed long and loud. Yes! He had done it. They were all going to be rich, and it was only the beginning. At his desk, he smoked his Cuban cigar, drank his single-malt scotch, and rocked with laughter in private celebration. Until his cell phone rang in the bottom drawer.

He yanked open the drawer and snatched up the phone. “Nadal?”

There was a brief delay of wireless phoning from a long distance. Then there was the self-satisfied voice: “We have located Jon Smith.”

This was proving to be his day. “Where?”

“Iraq.”

Momentary doubt assaulted Tremont. “How did he ever get inside Iraq?”

“Perhaps the Englishman from the Sierras. I have found it impossible to learn anything about him. There is no certainty Howell is his correct name any more than Romanov. That leads me to believe he has much he wishes to be unknown.”

Tremont nodded angrily. “Probably MI6. How did you locate Smith?”

“One of my contacts ― a Dr. Kamil. I assumed Smith would be trying to find our test cases, so I alerted all the doctors I knew. Not that many are practicing now in Baghdad. Kamil reported Smith wants to know about the survivors as well.”

“Damn! He can't be allowed to find that.”

“If he does, it will not matter. He will never leave Iraq.”

“He got in.”

“He did not then have Saddam's police and the Republican Guards looking for him. Once they know the American intruder is there, they will seal their borders and hunt him down. If they do not kill him, we shall.”

“Dammit, Nadal, make sure you do this time!” Tremont snarled, and remembered their other problem. “What about Bill Griffin? Where is he?”

Already humbled by Tremont's anger, al-Hassan's face grew stonier. “We are watching everywhere Jon Smith has been, but Griffin appears to have vanished from the earth.”

“That's just perfect!” In a rage he punched the cell phone's off button and glared unseeing across the office.

Then the day's triumphs returned to make him smile. No matter what Jon Smith found in Iraq, and despite Griffin, the Hades Project was going forward according to plan. He sipped his whiskey and his smile broadened. Even the president was on board now.

The man had followed Bill Griffin's rented Toyota pickup from Fort Irwin. He stayed at a safe distance, never too close or too far back, on the two-lane road and then on Interstate 15. He was waiting for him to land somewhere relatively permanent. A place where Griffin would return and where he would sleep. Griffin knew the man would have followed him all the way to Los Angeles if necessary until he was certain Griffin would remain in one place long enough for backup to arrive.

Now from behind the curtains of the Barstow motel room, Griffin saw the man get out of his Land Rover and head toward the motel office. An ordinary man in a nondescript brown suit and open-necked shirt. Griffin had never seen him before. He would have been surprised if he had. Still, he recognized the almost imperceptible bulge of a pistol under the man's suit coat. The man would check whether Griffin ― or whatever name the customer in unit 107 was using ― was registered for the night. Then he would make his phone call.

Griffin grabbed one of the motel's bath towels. He raised the rear window, climbed out, and circled behind the units to where he could see into the office. His stalker was showing a fake badge or official ID to the motel clerk. The clerk studied the register, nodded, and turned the register so his questioner could view it.

Griffin trotted to the man's Land Rover and slipped into the backseat of the high vehicle, crouched down, and waited. Quick footsteps hurried to the Rover, and the front door jerked open.

As it slammed shut, Griffin raised up, a silenced Walther PPK 6.35mm in his right hand, the bath towel in the other.

The man was dialing his car phone.

In a single motion, Griffin dropped the towel around the man's head and fired once. The man's head snapped back. With the towel Griffin caught most of the blood and brain matter. He quietly lowered the slumped body. Sweating, he got out, pushed the body into the passenger seat, and climbed behind the wheel.

Far out in the desert, he buried his stalker. Then he drove back into Barstow and left the car locked on a side street. Tired and angry, he walked to his motel, checked out, and drove toward Interstate 15. At Fort Irwin he had learned that Jon Smith had been interested in Tremont's “government scientists” and Major Anderson's service in Iraq during Desert Storm. When he reached Interstate 15, he turned the pickup toward Los Angeles and its international airport. He had decisions to make, and the best place to do that was on the East Coast.

CHAPTER THIRTY ONE

The bent woman in the black abaya was a block away from the used-tire shop when she heard the first fusillade. She paused next to an old man who sat cross-legged on the street, his palm outstretched as he begged. She gazed down at him with empty eyes, while her brain assured her she was not required to return to the shop to find out what the shooting meant.

But then she heard the explosive blasts of gunfire again.

When she had left the shop, her mission was over. She had made certain the undercover American doctor had made contact. At that point, she left, as she was supposed to. An armed attack had not been part of the plan. Nor had the man who had turned out to be the undercover doctor. She tensed. She might be many things, but one thing she was not was cavalier with her orders. She took tremendous pride in her work. She was thorough, responsible, and utterly reliable.

She looked down at the Iraqi beggar once more. She dropped dinars onto his palm. Her long abaya flapping around her legs, she moved as swiftly as her bent shape allowed back toward the tire shop.

In the Baghdad alley, the dark shadows were the only protection for Smith, the woman, and the baby. He pulled them close against the shack, which prevented them from being seen easily. The gunfire inside drowned out normal city sounds, but still Jon listened and watched. Through the gloom, he studied both ends of the alley. He could just make out what appeared to be a dozen Republican Guards. They were approaching carefully, their weapons first. They moved with certainty and stealth, Saddam Hussein's prized killers.

Still, he gave the woman a reassuring smile as she gazed anxiously up at him in the moonlight. “Be right back,” he whispered. He knew she would not understand, but perhaps the sound of a human voice would help her to maintain her equilibrium as she cradled the baby protectively to her chest.

His pulse throbbing at his temples, Jon rolled to the left and pulled on the first door latch. Locked. Then the second. Locked again.

The Republican Guards drew closer.

He reversed course and slid past the woman. He tried a third door. Also locked.

Frustrated and worried, he drew her away from the tire shop to the building next door and tugged on her arm until she crouched beside him, low against the wall where it met the old stones of the alley. He wanted them to be small targets. He could see nothing else he could do ― he was going to have to fight their way out.

His chest tight, he gripped his Beretta and continued to watch the stealthy shadows draw closer. Sweat gathered under his clothes despite the cool night air. The gunfire inside the tire shop had stopped. For a moment he thought about Ghassan and hoped he had survived; then he wiped away all thoughts of anything but the danger in the alley.

He concentrated. The only sound was the rhythmic pad of the soldiers' feet as they approached. He breathed deeply, keeping himself calm. He remembered Jerzy Domalewski's warning that it was better to shoot and risk death than be caught alive with the gun. He had to make every shot count, because it was not only his life at risk but the woman and child's, too. He would open fire as soon as the killers were close enough to make it impossible to miss. He needed to hit as many as possible, as quickly as possible.

He wished fervently he had more than his pistol as they closed in. He raised the Beretta. At just that moment, the baby let out a wail, instantly followed by a series of piercing cries. The sounds reverberated along the alley as the woman tried vainly to quiet the child.

Now the Guardsmen knew where they were. Smith's chest tightened into a knot. Instantly bullets bit into the wall. Wood splinters shot out, sharp as needles. The woman lifted her head, her eyes white with fear. As the baby screamed, Smith slid in front of them, firing left and right at the soldiers in the shadowy night alley.

Suddenly a voice snarled, “Get ready. Don't move until I tell you!” It was a woman's voice speaking in American English, and it came from the tire shop's rear entrance, where the bullet-riddled door hung half open on one hinge.

Before Jon could react, a long black abaya flowed out the doorway and into the gloom, immediately followed by two pale hands with short, blunt fingernails expertly clutching an Uzi submachine gun. The featureless woman balanced the weapon back against her bent body with impressive ease. She squeezed the trigger and sprayed the Republican Guardsmen in both directions.

As the woman turned left to concentrate fire, Jon stayed low on his heels so he was beneath her bullets and still protecting the Iraqi woman and baby. While she was left, he wheeled right and picked off two of the thugs with his Beretta as they raced across the alley. When she turned right, he aimed left. By rotating their fire from one end of the alley to the other, in five minutes all the attackers had gone to ground ― dead, wounded, or just saving their hides. Shocked grunts and cries echoed along the dark passage. But there was no more sound of feet and no significant movement.

The abaya-clad woman barked, “Inside! Both of you.”

Jon felt a jolt. There was something oddly familiar about the woman s voice.

But that would have to wait. He pulled the woman with the baby back inside the tire storage room, and they ran after the bent woman as she limped past the tattered curtain and into the front, where blood had splattered the walls and pooled on the floor. There Ghassan and four Guardsmen lay dead against opposite walls. The metallic scents of blood and death stank the air. Jon's throat tightened. Ghassan must have killed the four soldiers before dying of a mortal wound to the chest.

“Ghassan!” The Iraqi woman gasped.

The woman in the abaya spoke rapid Arabic to the woman with the baby as she swiftly pulled off the pushi and abaya. Asking questions, she removed the harness that had kept her bent over. With relief, she straightened to her full five feet nine inches. Jon watched, fighting shock, as she adjusted the U.N. armband on her tweed jacket, smoothed her gray skirt, and stuffed the pushi and abaya into a compartment hidden under the false bottom of her gym bag. She had accomplished her transformation in less than a minute, at the same time carrying on a conversation with the woman.

But that was not what had frozen Jon. It was the disguised woman's appearance.

She had the same striking gold hair as Sophia's, although it was short and curled around her ears. She had the identical curved, sexy lips, the straight nose, the firm chin, the glowing porcelain skin, and the dusky come-hither look to her black eyes, although right now her gaze was hard and bright as she seemed to be asking the Iraqi woman a final question. It was Sophia's sister, Randi.

Smith inhaled sharply. “Christ, what are you doing here?”

“Saving your ass!” Randi Russell snapped without even looking at him.

Jon barely heard her. His heart felt as if it were breaking all over again. He had not remembered how much the two sisters had looked alike. Studying Randi now made his skin crawl, but at the same time he could not tear his gaze away. He held on to the shop counter and felt his heart rage. He blinked. He had to get over this quickly.

Her final question answered by the woman with the child, Randi Russell turned on Smith. Her face was cool marble. Not at all the face of Sophia. “The Guards' backups will be here any minute. We're going out the front. That's the most dangerous part, but it's safer than the alley. She knows the back streets better than I, so she'll lead. Keep your Beretta hidden but handy. I'll bring up the rear. They'll be looking for one European man and two Iraqi women, one wearing an abaya.”

Jon forced himself back to the present. He understood. “The survivors in the alley will report us.”

“Exactly. They'll describe what they saw. Let's hope my change of appearance will confuse the new team enough to hesitate. They hate Europeans, but they don't want an international incident, either.”

Jon nodded. He felt his cool reserve return.

They slipped out of the store into the dark night. This was just a mission, he told himself, and Randi was just another professional. With a practiced sweep, his gaze took in the street. Instantly he saw two of them: A military vehicle parked at the far end. It looked like a Russian BRDM-2, an armored car with a 25mm gun, coaxial machine guns, and antitank missiles. A second armored car was lumbering along the street toward them, a lethal behemoth frightening pedestrians out of its way.

“They're looking for us,” Jon growled.

“Let's go!” Randi said.

The woman carrying the infant hurried off, and within twenty feet slipped into a space between buildings so constricted one person could barely fit. Spiderwebs caught at his face as Jon ran along the narrow passage behind her. Alert and on edge, Beretta ready, he glanced back frequently at Randi to make certain she was all right.

At last they reached the end and stepped out onto another thoroughfare. Randi hid her Uzi back inside her gym bag, and Smith slid his Beretta beneath his jacket and into his waistband. The woman and child stayed ahead, while Jon and Randi strode along together, following at a discrete distance. It was natural ― two European U.N. workers out for the evening. But it left Jon with a queasy feeling, as if the past had just slammed into the present and left him aching and forlorn. He kept pushing back the pain of Sophia's death.

Randi growled, “What in hell are you doing in Baghdad, Jon?”

He grimaced. The same old Randi, as subtle and understanding as a cobra. “Same as you, obviously. Working.”

“Working?” Her blond eyebrows raised. “On what? I haven't heard of any sick American soldiers here for you to kill.”

He said, “There seem to be CIA agents here, though. Now I know why you're never at home or at your `international think tank.' ”

Randi glared. “You still haven't said why you're in Baghdad. Does the army know, or are you off on another of your personal crusades?”

He spoke a half-lie: “There's a new virus we're working on at USAMRIID. It's a killer. I've had reports of cases like it in Iraq.”

“And the army sent you to find out?”

“Can't think of anyone better,” he said lightly. Obviously she hadn't heard he had been declared AWOL and was wanted for questioning about General Kielburger's death. Inwardly, he sighed. She must not have heard about Sophia's murder, either.

Now was not the time to tell her.

The streets grew narrow again, with windowed overhangs that shone with yellow candlelight. The shops in these dark streets were little more than cubes set inside thick, ancient walls ― not high enough in which to stand erect, and just wide enough for most adults to spread their arms. A single vendor squatted in each entrance, hawking meager goods.

The woman with the baby finally turned into the rear entrance of a run-down but modern building ― a small hospital. Children lay sleeping and moaning on cots that rimmed the walls in the entryway and in the wards on either side. The woman carrying the feverish baby led Jon and Randi past crowded treatment rooms, all with child patients. This was a pediatric hospital, and from what Smith could assess, it had once been up-to-date and thoroughly outfitted. But now it was dilapidated, with its equipment in various stages of disrepair.

Perhaps this was where he was to meet the famous pediatrician. Because they were in such different fields of medicine, he had no personal knowledge of him. He turned back to Randi. “Where's Dr. Mahuk? Ghassan was supposed to take me to him. He's a pediatric specialist.”

“I know,” Randi told him quietly. “That's why I was in the tire shop ― to make sure Ghassan made safe contact with an undercover agent ― obviously, with you. Dr. Mahuk is a vital member of the Iraqi underground. We'd expected you to have your meeting there in Ghassan's store. We thought it'd be safer.”

The middle-aged woman with the baby stepped into an office with a desk and examining table. Gently she laid the baby on the table. As the infant whimpered, she picked up a stethoscope that was curled on the desk. Jon followed the woman, while Randi paused to look carefully up and down the dingy corridor. Then she stepped inside the office and closed the door. There was a second door, and she moved swiftly across worn linoleum to it. Warily she opened it onto a ward. Children's voices and cries rose and fell. Her face sad, she shut this door, too.

She took out her Uzi. Resting it in her arms, she leaned back against the door.

As Jon stared, her expression hardened and grew watchful, the utter professional. She was guarding not only the Iraqi woman and baby but him, too. It was a side of Randi he had never seen. As long as he had known her, she had been fiercely independent, with a compelling sense of self-confidence. When he had first met her seven years ago, he had found her beautiful and intriguing. He had tried to talk to her about her fiancé's death, about his sense of guilt, but it had been no use.

Later, when Smith had gone to her condo in Washington to try to apologize again about Mike's death, he had discovered Sophia. He had never been able to penetrate Randi's rage and grief, but his love for Sophia had made it less necessary. Now he would have to tell Randi about Sophia's murder, and he did not look forward to it.

Inwardly he sighed. He wanted Sophia back. Every time he looked at Randi, he wanted her back even more.

The Iraqi woman smiled up at Jon as he helped her unwrap the blanket around the baby. “You will please forgive my deception,” she said in perfect English. “Once we were attacked, I was concerned you might be captured. It was better you not know that I am the one you seek. I am Dr. Radah Mahuk. Thank you for your help in saving this little one.” She beamed down at the child, then bent over to examine it.

CHAPTER THIRTY TWO

Dr. Radah Mahuk sighed. “There is so little we can do for the children. Or, for that matter, for any of the sick and injured in Iraq.”

On the examining table, which had been repaired with nails and tape, the pediatrician listened to the chest of the baby ― a little girl. She checked the baby's eyes, ears, and throat and took her temperature. Jon guessed she was about six months old, although she looked no more than four. He studied her thinness and the translucency of her fevered skin. Earlier he had noted the eyes were an ivory color and veinless ― indicating a vitamin deficiency. This baby was not getting enough nourishment.

At last Dr. Mahuk nodded to herself, opened the door, and called for a nurse. As she handed the infant over, she stroked the little girl's cheek and gave instructions in Arabic: “Bathe her. She needs to be cleaned. But use cool water to help bring down the fever. I will be out shortly.” Her lined face was worried. Weariness had collected in blue circles under her large dark eyes.

Randi, who had understood the doctor's orders, asked in English, “What's wrong with her?”

“Diarrhea, among other problems,” the pediatrician answered.

Jon nodded. “Common, considering the living conditions. When sewage seeps into drinking eater, you get diarrhea and a lot worse.”

“You are right, of course. Please sit down. Diarrhea is common, particularly in the older parts of the city. Her mother has three other children at home, two with muscular dystrophy.” She shrugged wearily. “So I told her I would take her little girl to see what I could do. Tomorrow morning, the mother will come and want her back, but she does not get enough to eat to produce milk to nurse. But perhaps by then I will find some good yogurt for the baby.”

Dr. Mahuk pushed herself up onto the edge of the examining table and sat. Her legs dangled from beneath the simple print dress. She wore tennis shoes and white anklets. In Iraq, life for most people was basic, and this doctor, whose work had been published widely, who once had traveled the globe to address pediatric conferences, was reduced to nostrums and yogurt.

“I appreciate your taking the risk to talk to me.” Jon sat in a rickety chair at the desk. He looked around the Spartan office and examination room. A worried sense of urgency made him edgy. Still, he smoothed his features and kept his voice casual. He was grateful the pediatrician wanted to help, and he was frustrated from his long day.

She shrugged. “It is what I must do. It is right.” She unwound her white cowl and shook out her long dark hair. As it fell in a cloud around her shoulders, she appeared younger and angrier. “Who would have thought we would end like this?” Her dark eyes snapped. “I grew up during the early promise of the Ba'ath Party. Those were exciting days, and Iraq was full of hope. The Ba'ath sent me to London for my medical degree and then to New York for training at Columbia-Presbyterian Hospital. When I returned to Baghdad, I founded this hospital and became its first director. I do not want to be its last. But when the Ba'ath made Saddam president, everything changed.”

Smith nodded. “He sent Iraq into war with Iran almost immediately.”

“Yes, it was terrible. So many of our boys died. But after eight years of blood and empty slogans, we finally signed a treaty in which we won the right to move our border a few hundred meters from the center of the Shatt al-Arab to its eastern bank. All those wasted lives for a minor border dispute! Then to add insult to injury, we had to return all the land to Iran in 1990 as a bribe to keep it out of the Gulf War. Insanity.” She grimaced. "Of course, after Kuwait and that terrible war came the embargo. We call it al-hissar, which means not only isolation but encirclement by a hostile world. Saddam loves the embargo because he can blame all our problems on it. It is his most powerful tool to stay in power.

“Now you can't get enough medicine,” Jon said.

The pediatrician closed her eyes with angry frustration. “Malnutrition, cancers, diarrheas, parasites, neuromuscular conditions… diseases of all kinds. We need to feed our children, give them clean water, and inoculate them. Here in my country, every illness is a death threat now. Something must be done, or we will lose our next generation.” She opened her dark eyes. They were moist with emotion. “That is why I joined the underground.” She looked at Randi. “I am grateful for your help.” She whispered insistently, “We must overthrow Saddam before he kills us all.”

Through the door against which she leaned, Randi Russell could hear the low voices of doctors and nurses, whose soft words were too often all they had to give to the sick and dying children. Her heart went out to them and this tragic country.

But at the same time, turmoil raged inside her. As she kept guard against more trouble from Saddam's elite forces, she gazed at the two doctors who continued deep in conversation. From the examination table where she sat, Radah Mahuk's dusky face was tormented. She was a key player in the shaky opposition group the CIA was financing and had sent Randi and others to help strengthen. At the same time, Jonathan Smith slouched in a low chair, apparently relaxed. But she knew him well enough to guess his casual demeanor hid vigilant tension. She thought about what he had told her ― he was here to investigate some virus.

Her gaze hardened. Smith's tendency to be a loose canon could jeopardize Dr. Mahuk and, through Dr. Mahuk, the resistance. Suddenly uneasy, she adjusted the Uzi in her arms.

“That's why you agreed to talk with me?” Smith asked Dr. Mahuk.

“Yes. But we are all watched, hence the subterfuge.”

Jon smiled grimly. “The more subterfuge, the better the CIA likes it.”

Randi's unease rocketed to the surface. “The longer you're together, the more danger to everyone. Ask what you came to ask.”

Jon ignored her. He focused on Dr. Mahuk. “I've already learned a great deal about the three Iraqis who died of an unknown virus last year. They'd been in southern Iraq on the Kuwait border at one time or another near the end of the Gulf War.”

“So I was told, yes. A virus unknown in Iraq, which is strange.”

“The whole thing is strange,” Smith agreed. “One of my sources says there were also three survivors last year. Do you know anything about that?”

This time it was Dr. Mahuk who had to be prompted.

“Doctor?” Randi said.

The pediatrician slid off the table and padded to the door that was closed on the main corridor. She opened it quickly. No one was outside. She looked left and right. At last, she shut it and turned, her head cocked as she listened for intruders. “To even speak of the deaths and survivals is forbidden,” she said in a strained voice. “But, yes, there were three survivors. All in Basra, which is in the south, too, as you must know. Close to Kuwait. It sounds to me as if you may have formed the same theory I have.”

Jon said grimly, “Some kind of experiment?”

The pediatrician nodded.

He asked, “All three survivors were also in the Gulf War, stationed near the Kuwait border?”

“Yes.”

“It's odd that all those in Baghdad died, while the ones in Basra survived.”

“Very odd. It was one of the aspects that drew my attention.”

Randi studied the pair. They were talking cautiously around an issue she did not quite understand but sensed was momentous. Their gazes were focused on each other, the tall American man and the small Iraqi woman, and the intellectual tension was palpable. At the moment, as they probed their mutual quest, the outside world had receded, which made them more vulnerable ― and Randi more alert.

Jon asked, “Can you explain why those in Basra survived, Dr. Mahuk?”

“As it happens, yes. I was in the Basra hospital, helping to treat the victims, when a team of doctors from the U.N. arrived and gave each an injection. They not only improved, four days later they showed no ill effects from the virus. They were healed.” She paused and deadpanned, “It was remarkable.”

“That's an understatement.”

“It is.” She crossed her arms as if she had just felt a chill. “I would not have believed it had I not seen it.”

Smith jumped up and paced around the room. His high-planed face was deep in thought; his blue eyes cold, glittering, and outraged. “You know what you're telling me, Doctor? A cure for a fatal and unknown virus? Not a vaccine, but a cure?”

“That is the only reasonable explanation.”

“Curative antiserum?”

“That would be the best possibility.”

“It would also mean those so-called U.N. doctors had the material in quantity.”

“Yes.”

Jon's words spilled out in a rush: “A serum in quantity for a virus that first broke out in Iraq's six cases last year and then mysteriously reappeared a little more than a week ago in six more cases halfway around the world, in America. And all twelve victims had served on the Iraq-Kuwait border during the war or had a transfusion from someone who'd served on the border.”

“Precisely.” The pediatrician nodded vigorously. “In two countries where the virus had never existed.”

The two medical doctors faced each other across a great silence, both reluctant to say the next sentence.

But Randi could. “It's not remarkable. It's not even a miracle.” They turned to stare at her as she spoke the unspeakable: “Someone gave all of them the virus.”

It sickened Jon. “Yes, while only half were given the serum. It was a controlled, lethal experiment on humans who were uninformed and gave no consent.”

The pediatrician paled. “It reminds me of the depraved Nazi doctors who used concentration camp inmates for guinea pigs. Obscene. Monstrous!”

Randi stared at her. “Who were they?”

“Did any of those doctors with the serum tell you their names, Dr. Mahuk?” Jon asked.

“They gave no names. They said helping the men could get them into trouble with our regime and with their supervisors in Geneva. But I am sure they were lying. There was no way they could have entered Iraq and worked at that particular military hospital without the government's knowing.”

“How, then? A bribe?”

“A large bribe in some form to Saddam himself, I would guess.”

Randi asked, “You don't think they were from the U.N. at all, do you?”

The pediatrician shook her head nervously. “I should have seen the natural conclusion before. It is the problem with today. Just to live is a battle, and so we miss the overall picture. The answer to your question is yes, I believe they were not from the U.N., nor were they practicing doctors. Instead, they acted like research scientists. Plus, they arrived quickly, as if they knew who was going to be sick and when.”

It fit Jon's idea that the twelve victims were part of a test begun at the 167th MASH at the end of the Gulf War. “Did they give any hint about where they'd come from?”

“They said Germany, but their German was textbook, and their clothes weren't European. I think they were Americans, which, a year ago, would have made it even more dangerous for them to enter Iraq without the approval of Saddam himself.”

Randi frowned. She adjusted the Uzi. “You have no thoughts about who could have sent them?”

“All I remember is their speaking once among themselves about excellent skiing. But they could be referring to many, many places.”

Jon paced, contemplating research scientists from America who had a quantity of serum to cure the new virus. Suddenly he realized: “I've spent the day asking about the six who had the virus a year ago. What about since then? Have there been more cases in Iraq?”

Dr. Mahuk compressed her lips in shocked sorrow. She had devoted her life to healing, and now the world seemed to be exploding in a sickness beyond anyone's control. Anger and pain and outrage laced her voice as she told them, “In the past week, we have had many new victims of ARDS. At least fifty have died. We are not sure of the exact number, and it changes by the hour. We are only beginning to investigate whether it is the unknown virus, but I have little doubt. The same symptoms are there ― the history of small fevers, the heavy cold or mild flu for a few weeks, and the sudden ARDS, the hemorrhaging and death within hours. There have been no survivors.” Her voice broke. “None.”

Smith whirled from his nervous pacing, stunned by the large number of deaths. Compassion filled him. Then he realized… this could be the answer: “Were these victims also in the Gulf War? Or from the Kuwait border?”

Dr. Mahuk sighed. “Unfortunately, the answer is not that simple. Only a few were in the war and none was from near Kuwait.”

“Any contact with the original six of a year ago?”

Her voice was discouraged. “None at all.”

Jon thought of his beloved Sophia and then of General Kielburger, Melanie Curtis, and the 167th MASH from ten years before. “But how could fifty people unknowingly be injected with the virus simultaneously ― especially in a sealed-off nation like yours? Were they from one single area? Had they been abroad? Did they have contact with foreigners?”

Dr. Mahuk did not answer immediately. She peeled away from her listening post at the door. She fished in a skirt pocket and took out what looked like a Russian cigarette. As she paced across the room to the examining table, she lit it, tense and nervous. The pungent barnyard aroma characteristic of Russian tobacco filled the Spartan office.

At last she said, “Because of my work with the virus victims last year, I was asked to study the new cases. I looked for all the possible sources of infection you mentioned. But I found none. I also found no connection among the victims. They appeared to be a random sampling of both sexes, all ages, occupations, ethnic groups, and geographic regions.” She inhaled again, letting the smoke out slowly as if still forming her thoughts. “They did not appear to have infected each other or their families. I cannot say whether that is significant, but it is curious.”

“It's consistent. Everything I've found so far indicates the virus has almost no contagious factor.”

“Then how are they getting it?” Randi had been following the conversation closely. Although she had no degree in chemistry or biology, she had had enough science courses to be aware of some of the fundamentals. What the two doctors were talking about… were deeply worried about… was an epidemic. “And why only Iraq and America?”

she asked. “Could it be the result of some biological warfare weapon from Desert Storm hidden here in Iraq?”

Shaking her head, Dr. Mahuk walked to the chipped metal desk in the corner. Her cigarette smoke followed like a brown ghost. She took a sheet of paper from a drawer and handed it to Jon. Randi instantly joined him, shifting the Uzi out of the way so she could lean closely. Appalled, they read a computer printout of a Washington Post front page:

DEADLY PANDEMIC OF UNKNOWN VIRUS SWEEPS GLOBE

The story reported twenty-seven nations had fatalities of more than a half million. All the illnesses began with a cold or flu for some two weeks, then abruptly escalated into ARDS, hemorrhaging, and death. In addition, forty-two nations reported cases in the high millions of what appeared to be a heavy common cold. It was still unknown whether all or any of those had the virus.

The news took Jon's breath away. Cold fear swept through him. A half million dead! Millions sick! “Where did you get this?” he asked.

Dr. Mahuk stubbed out her cigarette. “We have a secret computer at the hospital. We took that off the Internet this morning. Obviously, the virus is no longer confined to Iraq and America or to the Gulf War. I do not see how the cause could be a biological weapon in my country. The high number of deaths is ghastly.” Her voice broke. “That is why I knew I must speak to you.”

The ramifications of the news story and the pediatrician's revelations shook Jon again. Quickly he reread the article, thinking about what he had learned. Dr. Mahuk had ruled out nearly every possible contact with the outside; still, the virus had exploded into a worldwide epidemic. Two weeks ago, every one of the victims had been alive except the original three in Iraq from a year ago. The velocity of the virus's current expansion was inconceivable.

He looked up from the printout. “This is out of control. I've got to get home. If there really are people in America with a serum, I've got to find them. By now, some friends of mine may have information, too. There's no time to lose―”

Suddenly Randi stiffened. “Wait.”

Holding up her Uzi, she raced across the room to the door that opened onto the corridor. Smith was instantly at her side, his Beretta drawn. She was tense with nervous awareness.

Suddenly from the corridor a harsh voice, snarling in Arabic, became clear. Smaller, frightened voices answered. Heavy boots thudded authoritatively down the hall in the direction of the small examination room.

Jon looked at Dr. Mahuk and asked urgently, “The Republican Guards?”

She pressed quaking fingers to her lips and listened to the words. At last she shook her head and whispered, “The police.” Her dark, expressive eyes were pits of fear.

Randi tore across the room to the other door. With her curly blond hair and long, svelte figure in the clinging skirt and jacket, she looked more like a runway model than a seasoned CIA agent. But Jon had seen her risk her life and succeed in a superb defense against the Republican Guards back in the alley behind the used-tire shop, and now she radiated that same kind of intelligent physicality.

“Police or guards. Doesn't matter. They'll try to kill us.” Randi's head swiveled, her dark gaze summoning them to her. “We'll have to leave through the ward. Hurry!” She yanked open the door, looked back, and motioned Jon and Dr. Mahuk to go through first.

It was a mistake. The police were waiting for them on the other side. It was a trap, and they had fallen into it.

A uniformed Iraqi policeman lunged and tore the Uzi from Randi's hands before she could react. Three others poured into the room, AK47 assault rifles leveled. As Jon tried to raise his Beretta two more policemen burst through the corridor door and fell on him wrestling him to the floor. They were caught.

CHAPTER THIRTY THREE

Dr. Radah Mahuk stood motionless, her back to the wall, unable to move. She was brave but not foolhardy. Her job was to heal the sick, and she could not do that if she was killed. Nor could she try to save her country if she was consigned to the notorious Justice Detention Center. Like the dead Ghassan, she was a soldier in a sacred cause, but she had no gun, and she knew no self-defense. Her only weapons were her brain and the trust she had built among her countrymen. Free, she would be able to continue to help her people and perhaps the Americans, too. So she pressed back behind the counter, willing herself to be invisible. Sweat beaded up on her forehead.

Two more uniformed policemen entered from the corridor more warily, their gazes darting right and left, their weapons ready for any emergency. Behind them, a slender man dressed in a tailored uniform strolled into the room holding an Iraqi-made Beretta tariq pistol.

For the moment, no one was looking at Dr. Mahuk. She was not important, at least not yet. Terrified and heartsick, she slipped away into the hall and walked as slowly and unobtrusively as she could to locate a telephone.

In the room, the tailored officer smiled at Jon and said in lightly accented English, “Colonel Smith, yes? At last. You have been most difficult to find.”

He inclined his head to Randi with exaggerated politeness. “And this lady? I do not know her. Perhaps the CIA? It is rumored your nation finds us so fascinating that you must constantly send undercover spies to measure the temperature of our love for our leader.”

Jon's chest was tight with anger. They had been careless. Damn!

“I don't know her,” he lied. “She's part of the hospital staff.” It sounded lame even to his ears, but it was worth a shot.

The officer laughed in disbelief. “A European lady is a member of this hospital? No, I do not think so.”

Angry with herself, worried for the underground organization, and frantically thinking of what they could do, Randi shot Jon a surprised look, grateful for his attempt.

But then the officer stopped smiling. He flourished his tariq. It was time to move his prisoners to wherever they were to be taken. He gave a command in Arabic, and the police pushed Randi and Jon out into the corridor. Doors quietly clicked shut ahead in the passageway as the terrified hospital personnel tried to keep themselves and their charges out of harm's way. The two Americans were marched out through a silent, empty corridor.

Randi watched nervously everywhere for Radah Mahuk, and when she saw no sign of her, she breathed deeply, relieved. Abruptly one of the policemen shoved the muzzle of his gun into her back, hurrying her along, a painful reminder of the danger of their situation. She broke out in fresh sweat, afraid.

The police paraded the Americans out into the star-studded night where an old Russian truck with a canvas-covered squad carrier waited at the curb, its motor rumbling. Billowing exhaust from the tailpipe of the old motor curled upward, silver white in the cold moonlight. Around them, the night sounds of the city were close and menacing. The police lowered the truck's tailgate, raised the canvas, and pushed the two Americans into the rear.

The interior was moist and dark, and there was a nauseating stink of diesel. Randi shivered and stared anxiously at Jon.

He gazed back, trying to hide his fear. His voice was wry: “And you complain about my crusades.”

She gave a weak smile. “Sorry about that. Next time I'll plan better.”

“Thanks. My disposition's improved already.” He warily studied the interior. “How do you think they found us?”

“I don't see how they could've tracked us from the tire shop. My guess is someone in the hospital turned us in. Not every Iraqi agrees with Dr. Mahuk's revolutionary ideas. Besides, the way things are in this country, people will turn on you in the hope of gaining a little favor with the police.”

Two of the Baghdad cops clambered up into the truck. They aimed their big Kalashnikovs at the Americans and indicated by waves of their hands and grunted words that the pair was to move deeper into the truck, far from the tailgate. Pretending defeat, Jon and Randi scrambled farther inside and settled behind the truck's cab on a plank seat. The two armed men took positions next to the tailgate on either side of the truck, guarding the only exit. They were about ten feet from their prisoners ― within easy firing range.

The officer with the tariq pistol stood in the opening at the truck's rear. “Au revoir for now, my new American friends.” He smiled at his idea of humor. But he aimed his weapon at them ominously as he ordered the tailgate locked into place.

Jon demanded, “Where are you taking us?”

“A playground. A weekend getaway. A resort, if you will.” The Iraqi grinned under his mustache. Then his voice grew flinty and his eyes narrowed. “In truth? The Justice Detention Center. If you do what you are told, perhaps you will live.”

Jon tried to hide a surge of fear as he remembered Jerzy Domalewski's description of the six-story underground torture and execution complex. He exchanged a look with Randi, who sat close on his left. Her face was expressionless, but he saw her hand tremble. She knew about the detention center, too. That hellhole was not survivable.

The canvas flap dropped, and they were cut off from the outside. The two guards sat back, their rifles pointed at the prisoners. There were sounds in front as the officer and other police climbed into the cab.

As the truck lurched away, Jon was silent. Because of him, Randi had been caught. He had no illusions about what they would do to a CIA spy, especially a female one. And how was he going to get word to USAMRIID and the Pentagon to tell them what he had learned about the virus and cure?

He said quietly, “We have to get out of here.”

Randi nodded. “The detention center doesn't thrill me either. But our guards are armed. Lousy odds.”

He gazed through the inky shadows at the two Iraqis, whose faces were fixed in watchful stares. Besides assault rifles, they had holstered pistols on their hips.

They bounced onto a street so narrow that the truck's canvas sides scraped the stone walls.

They had to act before it was too late. He turned to Randi..

“What?” she asked.

“Are you feeling ill?” he suggested.

She pursed her lips. Then she understood: “As a matter of fact, I feel a terrible stomach cramp coming on.”

“Groan loudly.”

“Like this?” She moaned and grabbed her stomach.

“Hey!” Smith called to the guards. “She's sick. Come help her!”

She doubled over and shouted in Arabic, “I'm dying! You've got to help!”

The guards exchanged a look. One raised his eyebrows. The other laughed. They hurled words Jon did not understand. Randi groaned again.

Jon stood, his back bent below the canvas top, and took a step toward the guards. “You've got to―”

One shouted at him, while the other fired his rifle. The shot blasted so close past Smith's ear that the sharp whine seemed to pierce his brain. As the bullet exited out the top of the canvas roof, the two guards motioned him roughly back.

Randi sat up. “They don't believe us.”

“No kidding.” Jon fell onto the seat, his hand over the ear, his head ringing. “What were they saying?” He closed his eyes, willing the throbbing pain to go away.

“That they'd done you the favor of missing. Next time, we're both dead.”

He nodded. “Figures.”

“Sorry, Jon. It was worth a try.”

The truck was turning from narrow street to narrow street, following a twisting route. Its sides continued to rasp occasionally against buildings. She could hear the cries of shopkeepers open long after they should have closed in the hope of one more sale, perhaps their only sale of the day. Sometimes there were the disembodied, scratchy sounds of prewar radios. Everything told her they were staying in the older parts of Baghdad.

She whispered, “They're driving too slowly and staying on the back streets. That's not logical. The Baghdad police go wherever they want. Keeping a high profile is part of the job, but these men are avoiding major thoroughfares.”

“You think they're not police?” He dropped the hand from his ear. The pain was receding.

“They have the uniforms and the high-powered Russian weapons. If they're not police, they'll be dead if they're caught. I don't know who else they could be.”

“I do.”

As he said that, the past week came rushing back, and something happened that he had been fighting: Randi disappeared, and Sophia took her place. His heart ached with every fiber at the sight of her again. Sophia's beautiful black eyes shone out at him, surrounded by the smooth, pale skin and the long, cornsilk hair. Her full lips spread in a sweet smile, showing tiny white teeth. She had that indefinable beauty that was so much more than flesh and bones. It radiated from an inner core of decency and vitality and intellect that transformed mechanics into aesthetics. She was gloriously beautiful in every way.

For one moment of madness, he truly believed she was alive. Just by reaching out, he could gather her into his arms, smell the scent of her hair, and feel the beat of her heart against his. Alive.

He dug deep inside himself, searching for strength.

And made himself blink.

He shook his head to clear it. He had to quit lying to himself. He was looking at Randi.

Not Sophia.

They were in grave danger. He had to face the truth. His stomach felt hollow, like an elevator falling too fast. It was possible neither of them would survive. He could delay no longer.

He had to tell her about Sophia. He had to say the words because if he did not, he was going to slip over into some other world where he could pretend forever Randi was Sophia. He could not allow his emotions to continue these cruel games.

Because it was not just his future at risk. It was Randi's, too, and tens of millions of people who could die from the virus. He could hear Sophia's voice inside his mind: “Shape up, Smith. Just because you decide to live doesn't mean you don't love me. You've got a job to do. Love me enough to get on with it.”

Randi was studying him. “You were going to say who you think the police are.”

He inhaled again, pulling oxygen and sanity into his body. “At the time, I didn't notice. But when they first attacked, their leader said my real name. Not the cover name I'd been going around Baghdad using. I don't see how else he could've known I was Colonel Jon Smith except that he ― all of them ― were hired by the people with the virus. They've been trying to stop me from investigating ever since―”

He made himself see her, not her sister. But as he did, her face tightened as if she realized he was going to tell her something terrible, something that affected her intimately. One more thing she might never forgive him for.

He said gently, “Randi, I have terrible news. Sophia's dead. They murdered her. The people behind all this did it.”

CHAPTER THIRTY FOUR

Randi jerked erect. For a moment Jon had the sensation she had heard something else… not his voice or words. Her face was frozen. The muscles seemed to atrophy. But she gave no other outward sign she had received the devastating news that her sister had been murdered.

In the shocked silence, he felt the truck's every bump and lurch. Their lives depended on it, so he forced himself to pay attention. The truck's speed was increasing. Buildings seemed farther away, and the sounds of voices and radios receded. They must be on a wider street. He noted traffic sounds and bits of conversation from the truck's cab, but that was all.

His pulse throbbed guiltily at his temples. “Randi?”

Suddenly her face collapsed. Tears streamed down her cheeks, but she remained erect and motionless. She had heard the words, but she could not understand the meaning. Pain seared through her. Sophia? Dead? Murdered? She rejected them. Impossible. How could Sophia be dead?

Her voice was wooden through her tears. “I don't believe you.”

“It's true. I'm sorry. I know how much you loved her, and she loved you.”

Guilt overwhelmed her. His words were hammer blows. I know how much you loved her.

She had not seen Sophia in months. She had been too busy, too involved in her job. Other people needed her more. She had thought there would be plenty of time later to be close and really enjoy each other again. When they had both done what they had to do.

When Jon Smith no longer took up so much of Sophia's life.

It felt as if her heart were shattering. Angrily she used the fingers of both hands to wipe away her tears.

“Randi?”

She heard his voice. Heard the truck… with a sudden hollowness below the wheels. Her mind quickly shifted, and as if from a great distance she realized they were crossing a bridge. A long bridge with the sound of the truck echoing off water beneath. She heard the rush of open air around them. The far-off cries of men who were night fishing. The bray of a donkey.

And then with an aching rush, she remembered. Sophia. She crossed her arms, trying to hold herself together, and she looked at Jon. There was devastation in his face. His grief looked so deep it could never be erased.

That face was not lying: Sophia was dead.

Sophia was dead.

She inhaled sharply, trying to control herself. Her sister's face kept flashing into her mind. At the same time, she was looking at Jon Smith. She had just begun to think she could trust him. She wanted to believe he had nothing to do with it, but she could not help her suspicions.

His blind arrogance back when he had been treating Mike had led to Mike's death. Had he killed her sister just as he had killed Mike?

“How?” she demanded. “What did you do to her?”

“I wasn't there, not when it happened. I was in London.” He told her everything, from the time he met Bill Griffin to his discovery of the missing page and the needle mark in Sophia's ankle. “It was the virus Sophia was trying to identify, classify, and trace to its source. The same virus I followed here to Iraq. But her death was no accident. The virus isn't that contagious. She would have had to have made a very careless mistake. No, they infected her with it because she had uncovered something. They murdered her, Randi, and I'm going to find out who they are and stop them. They won't get away with it….”

As he talked on, she closed her eyes, thinking about how much Sophia must have suffered before she had died. She fought back a sob.

Jon continued, his voice low and earnest, “…They murdered our director and his secretary, too, because I'd told them someone had the live virus and was using it on people. Now we have a global epidemic. How the new victims contracted the virus I don't know, or how someone cured a few. But I've got to find out….”

He was still talking over the rumble of the truck, which was driving faster. The noises of the city had been left behind, and now it seemed as if they were in open country. There was only the occasional roar of a vehicle passing in the other lane.

Another surge of tears overcame her. He put an arm around her shoulder, and she pushed him away. She wiped her face with her sleeve.

She would not cry anymore. Not here. Not now.

“…They're powerful,” he was saying. “Obviously, they've been here in Iraq. Maybe they still are. Which is one more reason to think they sent these `police.' The people behind the virus seem to reach everywhere. Even into our government and the army itself. High up into the Pentagon.”

“The army? The Pentagon?” She stared at him in disbelief.

“There's no other explanation for USAMRIID's being taken out of the loop, shut down, and the lid clamped on. And then all the records that were erased through the NIH's FRMC terminal. I was getting too close, and they had to stop me. It's the only explanation for Kielburger's death. He was calling the Pentagon to tell them what I'd discovered when he vanished. He and his secretary disappeared and were found dead hours later. Now they're looking for me, too. I'm officially AWOL, plus I'm wanted for questioning in the deaths of General Kielburger and his secretary.”

Randi repressed a bitter comment. Jon Smith, the man who had killed her great love, was telling her the U.S. Army was somehow involved in her sister's death and he had run from them in the noble cause of pursuing his investigation. How could she believe him? Trust him? His whole story sounded like some kind of enormous fabrication.

Yet any American who came to Iraq now risked his life. She had seen his courage as he had tried to protect Dr. Mahuk from the Republican Guards before he had even known she was Dr. Mahuk. Then there was the virus itself. If he had been the only one to tell her about it, she would be doubtful. But Dr. Mahuk was also a source, and she trusted Radah Mahuk.

As she was contemplating all this, she heard the truck cross another long bridge. Again there was the familiar hollow sound below, echoing from water.

What water? She came totally alert. “How many bridges have we crossed?”

"Two, as I recall. About fifteen, twenty miles apart. This is the second one.

“Two.” Randi nodded. “That's what I counted. There should be a third soon.”

She took a deep, shuddering breath. And another. They were all gone ― her father, mother, and now her sister. First her parents in a boating accident off Santa Barbara ten years ago. And now Sophia. She wiped her eyes again as they waited, silent in their shared grief.

The truck drove onto a third bridge, and instantly she was back in the present. In the moment. At work. Right now it was her only balm.

In a charged whisper, she told him, “We must've crossed the Tigris in the middle of Baghdad. Then the second bridge had to be over the Euphrates. The third must be the Euphrates again. We're not going south. We're going west. If the land goes into a slow climb, we'll know we're heading into the Syrian Desert and eventually to Jordan.”

Impressed, Jon stared past Randi at the two policemen, who were talking quietly. Their rifles rested in their arms, the muzzles pointed casually toward their prisoners. It had been a long time since he had tried to break away.

He said, “Tell them I'm stiff. That I'm just going to stretch.”

She frowned, puzzled. “Why?”

“I've got an idea.”

She seemed to study him again. At last she nodded. “Okay.” She spoke humbly in Arabic to the two heavily armed men.

One responded in a bark, and she uttered more words.

At last she told Jon, “He says it's all right, but only you can stand. Not me.” She gave a grim smile.

“Figures.”

He got up to his feet and arched his back as if his limbs had gone to sleep. He could feel the policemen's intense gazes from the tailgate area. When they turned away, bored again and half asleep, he put his right eye to a long tear in the slope of the canvas roof. He looked out and up.

Suddenly the harsh voice of one of the policemen snarled.

Randi translated. “Sit, Jon. You've just been busted.”

Smith fell back to the bench, but he had seen what he wanted: “The north star. We are going west.”

“The Justice Detention Center is south.”

“So I was told. Besides, that had to be miles back. They're not taking us to jail, and they're not taking us to the center. You have any weapons they didn't find?”

Her brows raised. “A small knife inside my thigh.”

He looked down at her sedate gray skirt and nodded. She would be able to reach it quickly.

With an abrupt lurch, the Russian truck slowed and threw them forward. Another lurch sent them against the cab in front. It slammed Randi into Jon. She quickly pushed away. The vehicle stopped. Voices talked roughly. Suddenly there were noises of men climbing from the cab and walking forward, talking.

In the truck's rear, the two policemen went into a crouch, AK-47s at the ready.

She cocked her head, listening to the Arabic words. “I think the officer and one of his men got out of the cab.”

Jon shook his shoulders to relieve the strain. “Is it a checkpoint?”

“Yes.”

Silence. Then laughter. More laughter, a slapping of backs, some boot clicking, and the two policemen climbed back into the front of the truck. The engine ground gears and bumped forward, gathering speed.

Randi's voice was low and thoughtful, “From what I could hear, the Republican Guard stopped them, and they had no trouble convincing them they're legitimate police. The Guards even seemed to know the officer by name.”

“Then they are the police?”

“I'd say so, and that means they're probably moonlighting for your American friends. If we're both right, then whoever's behind all this has not only power but big money. The only good thing about our situation is we're not in the detention center. Still, there are six of them, all highly armed.”

The corners of Jon's mouth turned up in a half smile, but his blue eyes were cold. “They haven't got a chance.”

She frowned. “What do you have in mind?”

He whispered, “The pair who're guarding us were close to dozing off before the Republican Guard stopped the truck. With luck, the motion and monotony will lull them again and put them into a kind of trance. Let's pretend to nap. It could make them sleepy, too.”

“We can't wait long. They haven't brought us out here to enjoy the desert air.”

They sat in silence, eyes closed, heads drooping as they simulated sleep. They shifted positions from time to time the way sleeping people did. As his head nodded and he let out an occasional low snore, Jon watched the guards with his peripheral vision.

Miles passed. The guards' desultory conversation quieted and slowed as the truck rocked on into the night. Smith and Randi grew drowsy themselves. Then they heard a light snore that was not one of Jon's.

“Randi.” His voice was husky.

One of the policemen had slumped back against the canvas side. The other's head had fallen forward, and he was nodding, fighting sleep.

Soon they would have the chance for which they had hoped ― prayed, to be precise.

Jon pressed his index finger to his lips then pointed for Randi to crawl along the left side of the truck bed while he would crawl along the right. Randi nodded. They turned over onto their stomachs and rose to their knees. As the truck continued to rock, they slipped forward in the dim light.

Abruptly the truck made a sharp turn. Everyone was thrown hard to the right as it left the road for what felt like a rutted trail. The heavy vehicle jounced and shook with teeth-rattling vibrations. Disappointed, Smith resumed his slumped position against the wall, and Randi settled quickly back into her old spot as the two Iraqis, instantly awake, complained to one another.

“Damn,” she muttered.

The truck slowed, but the damage was done. There was no way they could jump these alert guards and survive.

Jon swore. They had lost their best opportunity so far ― maybe their last.

With another abrupt lurch, the truck slowed again, throwing them forward. As it lumbered to a stop, someone in the cab shouted angrily. An answering shout came from out in the night. Suddenly the motor of another vehicle roared. Headlights swept across the darkness and focused on the truck's canvas side, eerily illuminating the interior where Jon and Randi listened.

It was in Arabic. “What are they saying?” Jon asked.

“We've got more visitors.” Randi listened to the voices. “And our friendly police aren't all that happy about it.”

“Who is it this time?”

“I'm not sure. It could be Republican Guards again. Maybe something spooked them back at the checkpoint, and they've got a new batch of questions.”

“Terrific. Then we're in even worse trouble.” Jon wiped sweat from his face.

Suddenly Randi whispered urgently, “That last voice! It was speaking Arabic all right, but it wasn't Iraqi Arabic.”

Inside the truck, the two policemen had gone into wary crouches, their AK-47s up. They radiated vigilance. Something out there frightened them. They exchanged low words and reached for the canvas flap that covered the rear.

Their backs were facing Jon and Randi.

Without hesitation, Jon breathed, “Let's do it.”

He flung himself forward, trusting Randi to do the same. He tackled the policeman on the left, yanked him backward, and slammed his fist into the man's right temple. As he dropped to the floor unconscious, Jon wrenched away his AK-47.

At the same time, Randi pulled up her skirt, grabbed the knife from her thigh, and leaped at the second guard. Just as he whirled in his crouch to help his friend, Randi jammed the knife into his arm. He screamed, dropped his rifle, and grabbed the wound.

Randi thrust her knee up, connecting with his chin. His neck snapped back, and he sprawled onto his back unmoving, atop the other uniformed policeman.

As Randi swept up the AK-47, automatic fire exploded outside. It was as loud and surprising as thunder. Shouts and cries echoed across the desert night. There was the sound of running feet and more gunfire. It was a battle. The sounds were coming closer, and the fighting would soon be upon them.

CHAPTER THIRTY FIVE

At his desk in his corner office, Victor Tremont pushed aside the report on which he was working, rubbed his eyes, and again checked his Rolex. He tapped his fingers on the edge of the massive desk. He was tense, on edge. There had been no word from Nancy Petrelli or the surgeon general, and more than nine hours had passed since he had heard from al-Hassan. The end of more than a dozen years of risky work was coming to a triumphant conclusion, and he was too close to being one of the richest men in the world for anything to go wrong now.

Restless and concerned, he arose, clasped his hands behind his back, and paced across the plush carpeting to his wall of windows. The lake stretched into the distance like a silver crater in the final fade of sunlight. He could almost smell the thick pines on both sides as they darkened from blue to purple and now black. House lights blinked on like a scattering of emerging stars. He looked right and left to view the sprawling, heavily landscaped industrial complex that was Blanchard Pharmaceuticals, as if to reassure himself that it was all there. That it was real. That it was his.

His intercom buzzed. “Mr. al-Hassan has arrived, Dr. Tremont.”

“Good.” He returned to his desk and composed his face. “Send him in.”

Nadal al-Hassan's pockmarked features were triumphant. “We have Smith.”

Excitement surged through Tremont. “Where?”

As al-Hassan came to a stop before the desk, his cadaverous frame leaned forward like a greyhound about to pounce on a rabbit. He smiled. “In Baghdad. The policemen I bribed `arrested' them.”

“Them?” This was even better than he had hoped. “Zellerbach and the Englishman are there, too?”

Al-Hassan's smile faded. “Unfortunately, no. He was accompanied by some CIA agent. A woman we believe was working underground there.”

Inwardly, Tremont swore. An additional complication. “Whatever Smith has learned, she'll know by now. Destroy her. What about the other two?”

“We will have them soon. Zellerbach and the Englishman were discovered early this morning by our person inside USAMRIID―”

“This morning?” Tremont scowled angrily. “Why wasn't I told?”

Al-Hassan dropped his gaze. “Our agent at Detrick was alone at first and too involved following them. When Maddux and his men took over, they were kept so busy simply maintaining contact with this Howell that they had no chance to call. I received the full report only an hour ago. I have castigated him and impressed on him the need to keep me completely informed.” Al-Hassan described Peter Howell's break-in search, Marty Zellerbach's downloading of Sophia's file, and the pair's subsequent trip to Princeton. “Maddux reports they have driven north and are now outside Syracuse.”

Tremont paced across his office, thinking. Then he understood: “Zellerbach and Howell must be backtracking Sophia Russell's history.” He paused, furious. “'They could learn about her undergraduate trip to Peru and, from that, about her relationship with me.” He glared, controlling his anger. He prided himself on his understanding of human nature, and as he stared at the Arab he reminded himself that this enigmatic man from another land was all that stood between him and discovery by Jonathan Smith and his allies. Inwardly he nodded: Yes, he had to make certain al-Hassan succeeded in destroying Smith. Suddenly he an idea: “You should have stopped them long ago, Nadal. You've failed me.”

Just as Tremont had hoped, the hatchet-faced al-Hassan winced. The Arab stood motionless and silent, not quite able to speak, and Tremont had a sense of the man's discomfort, almost humiliation, because he had failed. This was exactly the reaction on which Tremont had been counting.

Al-Hassan's voice was flinty. “It will not happen again, Dr. Tremont.” He straightened, and respect radiated from him. “I have a plan.” He left the office as silently as death itself.

Dressed again in his black SAS uniform but without the hood or equipment belt, Peter pensively mulled everything over as he drove the big RV along the dark highway toward the distant twinkling lights of Syracuse. Behind him, Marty worked intently on the computer. The virus's sudden explosion across the world terrified both men. They must find something that clicked with the Prince Leopold report in Syracuse, or Marty had to turn up Sophia's missing phone calls or Bill Griffin's hideout.

They had heard nothing from Jon. This did not surprise Peter, but it concerned him. It could mean Jon was in trouble and unable to get back to the embassy in Baghdad, or it could mean nothing at all.

Soon after they had left Princeton, Peter had the uneasy sense they were being followed. To be certain, he had driven a circuitous route on secondary roads from New Jersey into New York. Well inside the state, he entered the thruway. If there had been a tail, he figured he should have exposed or lost it by now. Still, the uneasiness would not leave. These people were experienced and skillful.

Twice he pulled off at rest stops to search the RV's exterior for a tracking device. He found none. But the concern persisted, and he had learned long ago to trust his feelings. That was why he exited the thruway early to take the slower but less traveled back roads into Syracuse itself.

For the first five miles he saw only occasional lights behind, and those vehicles had driven straight on when he pulled off to watch. He had changed direction more than once, going west for a time, then south, then east, then back north, and finally west again toward the city. Now he was driving through the outer suburbs. Since he had still seen no evidence of surveillance, he began to relax.

The sky was starry and black, with charcoal clouds low and ominous beneath the moon. To their right, a woodsy state park extended along the road, its split-rail fence like ghostly broken bones in the night. The park appeared to be densely forested, with picnic tables and fireplaces dotting open areas. There was little traffic at this hour.

Then from out of nowhere a gray pickup passed the RV at high speed. It pulled in front, its brake lights instantly glowed blood red, and it slowed, forcing Peter to hit his own brakes. Peter instantly checked his rearview mirror. High headlights were closing in fast. It had to be another truck or SUV. Right on the RV's tail.

Peter called out, “Hold on, Marty!”

“What are you up to now?” Marty complained.

“Pickup in front. SUV or pickup in back. Bastards think they're going to trap us like chopped liver in a sandwich.”

Marty's round face flushed pink. “Oh.” He instantly locked down the computer, tightened his seatbelt, and gamely grabbed the table, which was bolted into the RV's frame. He steeled himself and sighed. “I suppose I'm actually growing accustomed to these emergencies.”

Peter pumped the brake and yanked the steering wheel right. The left wheels tilted up like a yacht in a high wind. Marty let out a surprised yell. The RV skidded on the two others, landed hard, and tore into the lighted picnic grounds. Behind them, brakes shrieked and rubber burned. The high headlights bounced across grass, roared over a sapling, and blasted through brush to emerge again on the park road. The gray pickup was close behind.

Marty watched through the windows, his heart palpitating with fear. Still, he was riveted by the spectacle. Although the Englishman was intellectually inferior, he had an uncanny ability where anything physical, particularly violence, was concerned.

Ahead, the road forked. Peter swerved the RV right. He was racing the bouncing, swaying pickup through the darkness. Abruptly the road curved back toward the lighted picnic area.

“Bloody damn!” he swore. “Road's a loop.” The high headlights were behind them, and the gray pickup was driving toward them from ahead. “Trapped again!” He reached behind his seat and pulled out his Enfield bullpup. “Get to the back door and use this!”

“Me?” But Marty caught the assault rifle as Peter tossed it to him.

“When I say, just point and pull the trigger, my boy. Imagine it's a joystick.”

The creases on Peter's leathery face were deep canyons of worry, but his eyes were glowing. He hit the brake again, yanked the wheel, and ran the RV off the road into a grove of trees that extended thick into the darkness. As soon as he skidded the big vehicle to a stop, he jumped from the seat, pulled out his H&K submachine gun, grabbed two cases of clips, handed the SA80 rounds to Marty, and hurried with his own clips and submachine gun to a side window.

The RV's nose was deep in the trees, and the side door also faced the woods. This meant the vehicle presented a solid side to the attackers while Peter and Marty could still fire from both the rear door and the small side windows.

Marty was examining his weapon, prodding it as he muttered to himself.

Peter asked, “Got it figured out?” The one good thing about the annoying fellow was he had turned out to be as smart as Jonathan Smith had claimed.

“There are some things I never wanted to learn.” Marty looked up and sighed. “Of course, I understand this primitive machine. Child's play.”

The car behind the headlights was a large black SUV. It had stopped on the road. The gray pickup was driving slowly across the grass toward the RV.

Peter shot out the front tires of the pickup.

The pickup sagged to a stop. For a time nothing moved.

Then two men pitched out like rag dolls from the pickup and dove under it. At the same time, automatic fire blasted from the SUV and slammed into the RV's side with loud screeches of tearing metal.

“Down!” Peter shouted as the RV rocked from the gunfire's impact.

Marty dove head first, and Peter crouched against the side wall.

When there was a pause, Marty looked around. “Where are the bullet holes? We should look like a sieve.”

Peter grinned. “Had some serious plate put on this buggy. Thought you knew that from the ruckus in the Sierras. Good thing, right?”

A new fusillade hammered against the armored steel sides. But this time, it smashed windows and tore curtains, too. Glass shards sliced through the air and embedded themselves into appliances. Bits of cloth floated down like snow.

Marty had wrapped his arms over his head. “Obviously you should have considered putting plate on the windows.”

“Steady,” Peter said quietly. “They'll become weary after a bit and stop to see if we're still alive. Then we'll just spoil their little party, eh?”

Marty sighed and tried to calm the terror in his veins.

After another minute of the violent barrage, the firing died away. The cessation of sound seemed to create a vacuum in the lighted park. The birds were silent. No small animals scurried through the underbrush. Marty's face was white with fear.

“Right,” Peter said cheerfully. “Let's have a look-see.”

He raised up to peer out a corner of the shattered window above him. The two men from the gray truck were standing in the shelter of their vehicle holding what looked like Ingram M11 submachine guns. They stared across the swath of lighted grass to the RV. As Peter watched, a short, heavy man in a cheap gray suit, his face glistening with sweat, stepped out of the big SUV. His weapon was a Glock pistol. He motioned with his arm, and two more well-armed men climbed from the SUV. With another motion he ordered the group to spread out and close in on the RV.

“Right,” Peter said again, softly this time. “Marty, take the two on the right. I'll take the left. I doubt any of them will charge into fire, so don't worry about your aim. Just point in their direction, squeeze the trigger, and let it rip. Ready?”

“My degradation increases.”

“Good man. Here we go.”

CHAPTER THIRTY SIX

Inside the heavily equipped RV, the tension was electric. Still some twenty yards away, the five armed men and the short, square leader were rapidly closing in on Peter and Marty. The attackers progressed carefully, their gazes constantly roaming. They carried their weapons with the sureness of experience. Even in the distance, menace radiated from their walks.

“Now!” Peter fired a careful burst at the leader, while Marty let loose with everything.

As Marty's barrage shredded leaves and pine needles, ripped bark, and sawed through small branches, Peter's target grunted, clutched his right arm, and fell to his knees. Marty continued to spray bullets. The noise was deafening.

“Hold it, Marty! That's enough.”

The echoes of the furious volleying reverberated through the park. The four men and their wounded leader crawled wildly for the shelter of firepits, benches, brush, and trees. Once under cover, they opened fire again at the RV. Bullets whined through the open window above Peter's head and thudded into the opposite wall. Selective this time, they were looking for targets.

Peter crouched low. “They won't hit us dead on again because of our firepower, but at the same time they won't go away. They've probably left a driver in the SUV. It's only a matter of time before one of us is hit, we run out of ammo and they get us, or the police come and arrest us all.”

Marty shivered. “Too bad the police are out of the question. Many aspects of the idea are appealing.”

Peter nodded and grimaced. “They'd want to know what we were doing with highly illegal weapons and a command post in the RV. If we tell them about Jon, they'll check, find he's wanted, and toss us into the slammer to wait for the army and FBI. If we don't tell them, we'll have no explanation, and they'll lock us up with our villainous friends out there.”

“Logical. You have a solution?”

“We must split up.”

Marty said firmly, “I will not be abandoned to those cutthroats and murderers.”

Peter's eyes glinted out from the shadows. In his black commando clothes, he was difficult to see. “I know you don't think I'm too swift, my boy, but do remember this is how I've made my living since before you were an irritating twinkle in your father's eye. Here's the plan: I shall slip out the front door where they won't see me. You will then blast away to cover me. Once clear, I will circle to the left and make so much noise they'll believe a brigade is escaping. When they're convinced we've both quit the RV, they'll pursue me with their entire force. At that point, you'll be able to safely crank up this packhorse and do a fast bunk. Clear?”

Marty pursed his lips. His round cheeks expanded in thought. “If I stay with the RV, then I can keep checking for contact from Jon while I pursue Sophia's phone calls and look for Bill Griffin. Obviously, I'll have to find someplace to hide the RV. When I do, I'll post my location at the Asperger's syndrome Web site, just as we discussed.”

“You're quick, my boy. There are certain aspects to dealing with a genius I like. Give me a minute to get into position, then fire away until your magazine's empty. Remember, a full minute.”

Marty studied the weather-worn face with the craggy features. He had grown accustomed to seeing it. Today was Wednesday, and they had been together constantly since Saturday. During the past five days, he had been hurled into more terrifying and hair-raising experiences than in his entire life, and with far more at stake. He supposed it was natural he had grown accustomed to having Peter around. For an instant he had a strange emotion: Regret. Despite all the Englishman's annoyances, Marty would miss him. He wanted to tell him to be careful.

But all he could manage was, “It's been strange, Peter. Thanks.”

Their gazes connected. Quickly both turned away.

“I know, my boy. Me, too.” With a wink, Peter crab-walked to the front of the RV and fastened on his equipment belt.

Marty gave a brief smile and took position again at the rear door. Nervously he waited while giving himself a stern lecture that he could indeed pull this off.

The incoming fire had all but ceased, probably while the attackers figured out a new plan. As soon as Peter slipped out of the RV and melted into the deep shadows of the moonlit woods, Marty counted out a minute in his head. He made himself breathe slowly and evenly. When the minute was up, he gritted his teeth, leaned out, and opened fire with the bullpup. The gun reverberated in his hands and shook his entire body. Frightened but determined, he kept up a steady stream of fire across the night and into the dark trees. Peter was depending on him.

From their cover, the attackers returned a fusillade. The RV rocked from the hail of bullets.

Sweat popped out on Marty's face. He kept squeezing the trigger as he fought back fear. When the magazine was empty, he hugged the gun to his chest and carefully peered around the corner of the doorway. He saw no movement anywhere. He wiped his palm across his forehead, getting rid of a layer of sweat, and let out a long stream of relieved air.

As another minute passed, he clumsily changed magazines. He sat back. Two minutes passed. His skin began to crawl with tension.

Then he heard what sounded like somebody trying to be quiet among the trees far off to his left. Peter! He cocked his head, listening.

A warning voice from one of the attackers carried across the picnic grounds: “They're escaping!”

Almost at once, heavy fire from what seemed like two or three rifles raked out of the forest on the left, the direction in which Peter had said he would go.

On the picnic grounds, the men from the pickup and SUV frantically found new hiding spots as gunfire continued from this new direction.

Then the firing ceased. It sounded as if several people were running away to the left through the forest.

“After them!” a different voice shouted from the picnic area.

Energy jolted Marty. That was what he had been waiting for. He watched as men from the truck ran off to the left. At the same time, someone turned on the SUV's engine, drove it in a wide U-turn, and headed off to the left also. Everyone was chasing Peter, just as he had predicted.

Guiltily, Marty rolled and bumped his way into the RV cab. He was safe while Peter was out there, a hare to their hounds. Still, he knew Peter was right ― this was the rational way to handle this grave situation.

The keys were in the ignition. He took a long breath to calm his resisting nerves and started the engine. He was worried not only about whether he would ever be able to uncover the vital information Jon needed; more to the point was whether he could drive Peter's RV safely away from the park. But when the oversize motor's power surged up through his hands and into his body, he had an idea: He closed his eyes and put reality on hold. Suddenly he was inside a Galaxy-rated starship, piloting it singlehandedly into the dangerous Fourth Quadrant. It was a forced trip, because he was still under the influence of his Mideral. Still, stars, planets, and asteroids flashed past the starship's bulkhead windows in rainbows of light. He was gloriously in control, and the unknown beckoned.

His eyes snapped open. Don't be silly, he told himself with disgust, of course you can drive this gravity-bound RV. It's virtually an anachronism!

With a surge of confidence, he threw the RV into reverse, hit the accelerator, sped backwards, and scraped a tree. Undeterred, he looked over both shoulders, checked the rearview and side-view mirrors, and saw nobody. He yanked the steering wheel, turned the RV around, and blasted it out of the forest like toothpaste from a tube. At the same time, he watched for trouble, just as Peter had taught him. His glittering green gaze examined shadows and obstacles, checking everywhere that could be cover for their attackers.

But this part of the park was quiet. Heaving a sigh of relief, he rocketed the RV past the picnic grounds and onto the highway heading north to Syracuse.

Crouched in a concrete drainage ditch at the edge of the park, his submachine gun ready to fire, Peter Howell saw his RV rushing north on the highway. He grinned with admiration. That exasperating little bastard Marty had risen to the occasion yet again.

He rubbed a hand over his grizzled chin and refocused his attention. He breathed deeply, inhaling the earthy scents of the damp ditch but also the fragrant trees on the higher ground and the myriad creatures that inhabited it. At the same time he listened and scrutinized with every fiber of his body. His senses were alert, on fire. He could hear and sense the attackers moving toward him on foot and in the SUV on the road that crossed the drainage ditch. It was time to get himself away.

He unhooked two cylindrical black canisters from his belt, laid them side by side on the parapet of the bridge, and drew his 14-round Browning Hi-Power 9mm pistol from his open combat holster. The pistol in his right hand and the H&K MP5 in his left, he raised his eyes to look down the road.

They were advancing in a wide line. The SUV was behind, its headlights outlining the bloody fools. He needed them closer together. So when they were still some fifteen yards away, he opened fire with both guns, moving quickly from side to side to simulate shooting by more than one person.

They zeroed in on him and returned fire. He fell back, as if retreating. Encouraged, they ran toward him in a tighter semicircle, while he grabbed the canisters and shimmied toward them on his belly. As soon as they were just thirty feet away, he lifted his shoulder and hurled the first canister. The magnesium-based stun grenade exploded with a great flash and bang directly in the center of their semicircle, only a foot or two from most of them.

All went down. Some screamed and clutched their heads. Others were simply stunned and momentarily out of action. Which was all Peter needed.

He was up instantly, speeding around their left flank. The thousands of rounds fired in the SAS Close Quarters Battle House, perfecting the skill to rapidly score head hits while running at full speed, never left you. He squeezed off two fast shots, easily destroying the SUV's headlights, and then he threw the second stun grenade. It landed in their midst. Since they still had not recovered from the first, it was not only physically but psychologically devastating. Within minutes, as they still tried to gather their wits, Peter was a hundred yards off in the distance, trotting softly but swiftly away toward the highway and Syracuse.

As he closed in on the city, Marty slowed the RV, looking for somewhere to hide it and himself. He was beginning to think this time he had outsmarted himself. Where could you hide something as big and obvious as a recreational vehicle, especially one in which many of the windows had been destroyed and bullet holes had battered the sides? Behind him on the state highway a line of cars was piling up. Horns honked, making him nervous as he anxiously scanned all around for safety.

Finally, he pulled onto the shoulder so the backed-up cars and trucks could rush past in an angry roar. Worried, he drove back onto the highway and resumed his search. Then he saw an intriguing sight: On either side of the highway were car dealerships with brightly lighted showrooms and lots full of vehicles. There was everything from inexpensive compacts to luxury sedans and sports cars. Miles of them. It was giving him an idea. He craned to look ahead. Would he find ―?

Yes! Like a miracle, a vast, lighted open area stretched off to the right. It was a new and used recreational vehicle sales lot and repair facility.

He thought of the old children's riddle: Where do you hide an elephant?

The answer, of course, was in a herd of elephants.

Chortling with glee, Marty turned into the main gate and drove to the back until he found an empty space. He pulled in and turned off his motor. It was late, so the dealer would have to close soon. With luck, no one would find him here at night.

Professor Emeritus Richard Johns lived in a restored old Victorian on South Crouse Avenue below the university's hill. In his living room, lovingly furnished by his wife with antiques of the same period as the house, he studied the man who had knocked on his door so late and wanted to know about Sophia Russell. There was something about the stranger that frightened Johns. An intensity. A suppressed violence. He wished he had never allowed him inside.

“I'm not sure what more I can tell you, Mr. ―?”

“Louden. Gregory Louden.” Peter Howell offered a smile as he reminded the professor of the false name he had given on the doorstep. Then: “Dr. Russell thought highly of you.” He was dressed in coveralls and a trench coat he had bought from a curious trucker who had given him a ride into Syracuse. From there, he had caught a taxi to the professor's house near the university, which had so far turned out to be a waste of time. The man was nervous and had been able to remember only that Sophia had been an excellent student and had a few close friends, but he could name none.

Johns reiterated, “I was simply chair of her major department and had her in a few classes. That's all. I heard she switched her field of study in grad school.”

“She was studying anthropology with you, wasn't she?”

"Yes. An enthusiastic student. We were surprised that she left the major.

“Why did she?”

“I have no idea.” Johns knitted his brows. “Although I do recall that in her senior year she took the absolute minimum requirements for anthro. She studied a lot of biology instead. Too late to declare a different major by then, of course, unless she planned to stay on another year or two.”

Peter stopped pacing. “What happened in her junior year to interest her in biology?”

“I have no idea about that either.”

He remembered the Prince Leopold report had mentioned Bolivia and Peru. “What about field trips?”

The professor frowned. “A field trip?” His gaze focused on Peter as if he had suddenly remembered something. "Of course. We have a summer departmental trip for majors between their junior and senior years.

“Where did Sophia go?”

The professor's frown deepened. He leaned back, thinking. At last, he decided, “Peru.”

Excitement made Peter's pale blue eyes luminous. “Did she talk about it when she got back?”

Johns shook his head. “Not that I remember. But everyone who goes has to write a report.” He stood up. “I should have it here.” And just like that he casually walked out of the room.

Peter's heart thudded against his chest excitedly. At last, he had gotten what seemed to be a break. He moved to the edge of his chair as the professor talked to himself in the next room. Drawers opened and slammed closed.

Then a triumphant “Ah-ha!”

Peter jumped to his feet, as Johns returned, thumbing through a stapled document. “When I was chairman, I kept them all. They are a useful body of work to draw from for motivating the lower-year classes.”

“Thank you.” The words were inadequate. Barely suppressing his eagerness, Peter took the undergraduate paper and sat in the closest chair. He read through it, and… there it was. He blinked, not quite believing his eyes. Then he read again, memorizing each word: “I encountered a fascinating group of natives called the Monkey Blood People. Some biologists from the States were studying them when we passed through. It seems like a fascinating field. There are so many illnesses in the tropics that it could be a life's work to help cure them.”

No names. Nothing specific about the virus. But had she remembered Peru when she was given the unknown virus to work with?

Peter stood up. “Thank you, Professor Johns.”

“Is that what you wanted?”

“It just might be,” Peter said. “May I keep it?”

“Sorry. Part of my archives, you know.”

Peter nodded. It did not matter; he had committed it to memory. He said a quick good-bye and headed out into the dark, cold night, which for the first time seemed friendlier. He trotted uphill toward the university, where he knew he would find a pay phone.

CHAPTER THIRTY SEVEN

The Syrian Desert was cold and silent, and the stink of diesel seemed oppressive inside the canvas-covered truck. Next to the tailgate, Jon and Randi listened for more gunfire. Behind them lay the two unconscious policemen who had been guarding them, while outside some new, unknown force besieged them.

Tense and alert, Smith dropped into a crouch, cradling his confiscated AK-47. He pulled Randi down next to him. She swung her Kalashnikov around so she was ready to shoot, too. They peered outside through cracks where the canvas flap closed against the sides of the truck.

“All I can see are streaks of fire and moving silhouettes,” he said, disgusted. Sweat coated his face. Time seemed to pass with aching slowness.

“That's what I see, too. The light from the other truck's too glaring.”

“Damn!”

They dropped the flap. Abruptly, the noise of fighting ceased. The cold night was menacingly quiet. The only sound was the raspy breathing of the two Iraqi guards lying unconscious on the floor in the eerie glow from the headlamps of the other vehicle.

Jon looked at Randi, who turned just at that moment. He frowned. She shook her head. Her face was pinched. He saw fear in her eyes, then she moved her gaze.

His chest tightened. Only the truck's canvas walls and their confiscated Kalashnikov rifles stood between them and whatever peril waited outside.

He told her, “We'll open fire. We've got no choice.”

“As soon as they're close enough.”

From the desert, a voice bellowed in Arabic at them, “Everyone has surrendered! Throw out your guns and follow with your hands up!”

Quickly Randi translated for Jon. She added grimly, “Sounds like the Republican Guard.”

Smith nodded. In the hovering silence, his gaze narrowed. He was not going to just sit and wait to be executed. He inched back the flap. In the slit he could see a trio of black silhouettes, their guns aimed at the truck where he and Randi hunched.

“I can get three,” Jon decided. “Perfect targets. Problem is, who are they? And where are the others?”

She rose up and peered out through the narrow opening above his head. The heat of her body warmed the chill around him.

“We may have to kill them anyway,” she said grimly. “We've got to get this information about the virus out of Iraq. Concentrate on their legs. What's a few shattered femurs compared to what's at stake?”

He nodded sober agreement and slid the nose of his AK-47 out. He wrapped his finger over the trigger, prepared to fire, and―

Suddenly, a voice boomed: “Russell!”

Jon and Randi stiffened. They gazed at each other, shocked.

“Are you in there, Russell?” the voice yelled in English. Very American English. “If you and the U.N. guy have taken out the guards, give me a shout. Otherwise, you're not likely to leave there without a lot of birdshot in your carcasses!”

Randi inhaled with excitement. She squeezed Jon's shoulder. “I know who he is, thank God.” She raised her voice. “Donoso? Is that you, pig breath?”

“No one else, little lady.”

“We almost killed you, you fool!”

Jon spoke in a low, quick voice. “Don't tell them who I really am. Use the U.N. cover. He already believes it, or he wouldn't have identified me that way. If the U.S. Army gets its hands on me for being AWOL…” He let the words hang in the air. He knew she understood the inevitable result: He would be stopped from pursuing the people who had killed Sophia. “Randi? Will you do that?”

She turned her angry, blazing eyes onto him. “Of course.”

He had to trust her, which suddenly made him very nervous. Together they raised the canvas that overlay the tailgate. Jon shot her a worried look as a short, swarthy man in desert camos came around from the side. He had the firm face and bunched muscles of someone religious in his fitness training. Carrying a cocked 9mm Beretta, he peered beyond them and their Kalashnikovs to the wounded policemen sprawled in the back of the truck.

He grinned approval. “Nice job. Two less for us to deal with.”

Smith and Randi jumped down, and Randi pumped Donoso's hand. “Always interesting, Donoso. This is Mark Bonnet.”

Jon exhaled, relieved, as she introduced him under the alias.

She gave him a polite smile, then returned to focus on Donoso. “Mark's here with a medical mission. Mark, meet Agent Gabriel Donoso. How the hell did you find us, Gabby?”

“Doc Mahuk called as soon as they grabbed you. Then one of our assets picked up the truck crossing the Tigris.” His gaze swept the night. “I'd love to catch up on old times, but someone could've heard the gunfire. We'd better do a fast fade.” He peered speculatively at Jon. “U.N. medical mission, huh?”

“CIA, I take it.” Jon shook his hand and smiled. “My personal appreciation for the CIA grows by the instant.”

Donoso nodded sympathetically. “Looks like you two have had a rough time.”

As Donoso led them around the truck, Jon saw an old Soviet BMP1 troop carrier whose sides had been stenciled with Republican Guard markings. Ruts showed where it had first been angled to block the road. Now its headlights shone directly onto the canvas-covered police truck. Sitting on the light desert soil with their backs against it were the surviving Baghdad policemen and their officer, who was bleeding from a shoulder wound and no longer sported his tariq pistol. Standing sentry were two CIA agents who might easily pass for Iraqis.

“Do you know what they were planning to do with us?” Smith asked Donoso.

“Yup. Get you deep out in the middle of nowhere, kill you, and hide your corpses where not even the Bedouins would dream of looking.”

Jon raised his eyebrows. He exchanged a look with Randi. It was no surprise.

Donoso said, “I need those Kalashnikovs, Mr. Bonnet. Both of them, little lady.”

As Randi and Jon handed over their weapons, Randi explained to Jon, “Donoso's an unrepentant male chauvinist pig. He knows better, but he just doesn't care. So he calls me little lady, or girlie, or sweetie-pie, or any other demeaning cliché he can dredge up from his rather ordinary redneck background.”

Donoso grinned widely. “She sticks to `pig breath.' She's got great legs but a limited imagination. Let's go. Into the carrier.”

“A limited imagination? Hey, I'm the one who saved your butt in Riyadh. Where's your respect?”

He grinned sheepishly. “Whoops. That occasion slipped my mind.” He added their AK-47s to a pile of other weapons taken from the Iraqi policemen. “See your guns in there?”

Jon quickly located his Beretta, while Randi dug around until she uncovered her Uzi. Donoso nodded approval and scrambled up into the carrier. Smith and Randi followed.

As they found places to sit, Jon nodded back at the prisoners. “What are you going to do about the Iraqis?”

“Nothing,” Donoso told him. “If they so much as hint about being out here on their own in a police truck, they'll get a fast trip to Saddam Hussein's gallows. No way are they going to breathe a word about what happened.”

Smith understood. “Which means they'd better have their own guns when they get back to headquarters.”

Donoso nodded. “You got it.”

While the prisoners glared up sullenly, the old troop carrier spun its treads into the parched soil and took off. Its speed increasing, the driver directed the big machine down the center of the narrow road that led deeper into the hard, rocky landscape. The moon was sinking in the west, while stars glimmered brightly above. Far ahead on the horizon were dry, rolling hills, black against an even blacker sky.

But Jon was watching behind. At last the Iraqis ran across the sand to the pile of guns and their truck. Now that the carrier was out of rifle range, they were safe to flee. Seconds later, their canvas-covered vehicle disappeared, raising mushroom clouds of light soil as it rushed back to Baghdad and, perhaps, survival.

“Where are we going?” Randi wanted to know.

“Old World War One outpost the Brits built,” Donoso answered promptly. “It's nothing but ruins now. A few tumbledown walls and desert ghosts. A Harrier will pick you up there at dawn and fly you out to Turkey.”

“They don't want me to stay on, pig breath?” Randi wanted to know.

Donoso shook his head with disgust. “No way, baby girl. This cute little caper has compromised you and damn near the whole operation.” His voice rose, and he glared again at Jon. “Hope it was worth it.”

“It was,” Jon assured him. “You have a family?”

“As a matter of fact, I do. Why?”

“That's how important it is. With luck, you've just saved their lives.”

The CIA agent looked at Randi. When she nodded, he said, “Works for me. But you'll have some fast talking to do at Langley, kiddo.”

Randi asked, “You're sure a Harrier can take both of us?”

Donoso was all business. “Stripped, no missiles, one pilot. Not comfortable, but it can be done.”

The lumbering carrier continued on through the windswept desert. Moonlight shone down, casting an unearthly silver cloak over the rocky wadi. Meanwhile, everyone's eyes were alert. Without ever discussing it, their gazes surveyed all around, watching uneasily for more trouble.

The ruins were on the north side of the road. From the carrier, Smith studied them. The remnants of stone walls emerged like worn, gray teeth from the desert. Skeletal brush had blown against some, while a clump of thorny tamarisk grew nearby, indicating water flowed somewhere under the salty surface of this forbidding landscape.

Donoso ordered a man to stand guard in the Russian BMP, and the rest of the crew settled against the walls, wrapped in lightweight blankets to wait out the starry night. The dry air smelled of alkali, and everyone was weary. Some fell quickly asleep, their low snores lost in the sound of a whispering wind that rustled the tamarisk and kicked up little tornadoes among the loose particles on the desert floor. Neither Randi nor Jon was among the sleepers.

He was studying her where she lay in shadows against the old wall. His head resting on a rock, he watched emotion play her face as if it were a musical instrument. He remembered that about Sophia, too. What she felt, she showed. Not a particularly demonstrative man, he had enjoyed that gift. Randi was more guarded than Sophia, but then Randi was a professional operative. She had been trained into sanity-saving unemotionality in her job. But not tonight. Tonight he could tell she was feeling the burning loss of her sister, and he felt deeply for her.

Grieving, Randi closed her eyes, overwhelmed by sorrow. In her mind, she could see her older sister clearly ― the slender face, the softly pointed chin, and the long, satin hair pulled back into a ponytail. When the image of Sophia smiled, Randi fought back tears and hugged herself. I'm so sorry, Sophia. So sorry I wasn't there.

But suddenly a treasure trove of memories appeared from the past, and Randi went eagerly toward them, hoping for solace: Breakfasts were the best. She could smell again the comforting aroma of Maxwell House coffee and hear the cheerful chatter of their parents as she and Sophia ran downstairs to join them. Evenings brought picnics and panoramic sunsets across the Pacific Ocean so brilliant they pierced the soul. She remembered the fun of hopscotch and Barbie dolls, their father's silly jokes, and their mother's kind hands.

But what had dominated their childhoods had been the sisters' uncanny resemblance. From their earliest years, people remarked on it, while she and Sophia had taken it all for granted. They had been blessed with an unusual combination of genetic factors that had resulted in both being not blue-eyed, but brown-eyed blondes. Very dark brown eyes, almost black. Their mother had found it fascinating. So her daughters could view a parallel to their unusual coloring in nature, she had planted black-eyed Susans along the front of their hacienda in Santa Barbara, California. Every summer the cream-colored petals with the rich dark centers had erupted in fragrant color.

All of that had ignited Sophia's first interest in science, while the hacienda's breathtaking views of the Channel Islands and the immense Pacific had awakened in Randi a hunger to know what lay beyond the horizon. Her family had two homes ― the one in Santa Barbara and another on Chesapeake Bay in Maryland. A marine biologist, their father had traveled back and forth regularly, and she, her sister, and their mother had occasionally accompanied him.

Who knew at what point other lives became important? For Randi, it began with the constant feeling of being new herself, not only during the trips from coast to coast but to the Sea of Cortés, the Mediterranean, and the other distant locations that attracted her father's excited attention. Soon she grew comfortable exploring the unknown and meeting unfamiliar people. Then she enjoyed it. Finally she craved it.

A gift for languages had sent her on full scholarship to Harvard for bachelor's degrees in Spanish and government and then to Columbia for a master's in international relations. Everywhere she went, she took additional language courses until she was fluent in seven. It was at Columbia that the CIA recruited her. She had been a natural ― the tweed and contacts of an Ivy League education plus the wanderlust of a gypsy. But she had turned out to be a lackadaisical operative, doing only an adequate job while avoiding the tough assignments… until Mike died in Somalia.

Untouched by bullet or knife, an invisible virus had felled him in an ugly, painful end. Even now it brought a catch to her throat and a searing regret for what might have been.

That was when the inequities of life began to strangle her. Everywhere she looked, people were hungry, imperiled, lied to, or repressed. It outraged her. She had turned inward, and her work became the center of her life. Once she no longer had Mike, the only thing that mattered was making the world a better, safer place.

But she had not made the world safer for Sophia.

She inhaled, trying to calm her emotions. She forced herself to focus. She had a goal. She knew she would never be able to like Smith and probably never to really trust him, but that no longer mattered.

She needed him.

She rose quietly, her blanket wrapped around her. She gazed around at the sleeping men. Carrying her Uzi, she crept across to where Jon lay. She stretched out beside him. He turned his head to look at her.

“You all right?” he asked quietly.

She ignored the kindness in his voice. She whispered, “Let's get one thing straight. I understand intellectually you didn't mean to kill Mike. Lassa is hard to tell from malaria at first, and it could've killed him anyway. But it might not have if you'd diagnosed it in time and gotten help.”

“Randi!”

“Shhh. I don't know that I'll ever be able to forgive you. You were too cavalier. Presumptuous. You thought you knew it all.”

“I was arrogant, yes. But I was mostly ignorant. So are most army doctors when it comes to rare tropical diseases.” He sighed wearily. “I was wrong. Fatally wrong. But it wasn't from not caring or being careless. I just didn't know. It's not an excuse, it's an explanation. Lassa is still mistaken for malaria. I tried to tell you Mike's death was the reason I transferred to USAMRIID, so I could become an authority on infectious diseases. It was the only way I could make up for what had happened ― make sure it never happened again to another army doctor. I'm so sorry he died, and I deeply regret the role I played in it.” He gazed at her. “Death is damnably final, isn't it?”

She heard the pain in his voice and knew he must be thinking about Sophia again. Part of her wanted to forgive him and put it all behind her, but she could not. Despite his contrition and efforts to make amends, he could still be the same old cowboy, galloping heedlessly through life as he pursued his private interests.

But right now that was irrelevant. “I have a proposition for you.”

He crossed his arms over his blanket and frowned. “Okay. Let's hear it.”

“You want to find out who killed Sophia, and so do I. I need your scientific knowledge to help me track the people behind the virus. You need my contacts and other abilities. Together we make a good team.”

He studied her face, so like Sophia's. Her voice was Sophia's voice, but her toughness was her own. To work with her was appealing… and dangerous. He could not look at her without remembering Sophia and feeling a raw rush of pain. He knew he had to go on with his life, but with Randi around, would he be able to? She looked so much like her sister, they could have been identical twins. He had loved Sophia. He did not love Randi. And to work with her could cause him endless grief.

So he said, “There's nothing you can do for me. This isn't a good idea. Thanks, but no thanks.”

She said roughly, “This isn't about you or me. This is about Sophia and all the millions of people out there who are going to die.”

“It is about you and me,” he corrected her. “If we can't work together, neither of us will accomplish a damn thing. Whatever chance I have of getting to the bottom of this will evaporate in arguments and hard feelings.” His voice lowered and he growled. “Understand this. I don't give a flying leap what you think of me. All I care about is Sophia and stopping her killers. You can continue on the rest of your life still hauling around your precious load of anger if that's what you want. I don't have time. I've got something far more important to do. I'm going to stop this scourge, and I don't need you to help me do it.”

He had taken her breath away. She was silent, stunned that her rage at him showed so much. Also, she felt guilty, which she was not ready to admit. “I could turn you in. Right now, I could go to Donoso, whisper in his ear, and he'd have the military police waiting for you when we land in Turkey. Don't look at me like that, Jon. I'm just laying out the alternatives. You say you don't need me, and I say you do. But the truth is, I don't play dirty with people I respect, and I respect you for everything I've seen in Iraq. Which means even if you and I can't work out something, I'll say nothing to Donoso.” She hesitated. “Sophia loved you. That's important, too. I may never get over Mike's death, but that won't stop me from working cooperatively with you. For instance, do you have any idea what you're going to do once I get us into the United States?”

Smith scratched his chin. All of a sudden the potential had shifted. “You can get me into the United States?”

“Sure. No problem. I'll be offered a transport or some other military flight back home. I'll take you with me. Those U.N. credentials are perfect.”

He nodded. “You think you can get your hands on a computer with a modem, too, before we arrive?”

“Depends. For how long?”

"With luck, a half hour. There's a Web site I need to check to find out where to meet my friends. They've been investigating certain aspects of the situation while I've been gone. Assuming they survived, of course.

“Of course.”

She stared at him, relieved and surprised at his pragmatism. He was a lot more complicated than she had suspected. Also a lot more decisive.

She was almost ready to apologize when he said, “You're tired. I can see it in your face. Get some sleep. We've got a busy day tomorrow.”

He had ice in his veins. But that was what she needed. Without ever saying so, he had agreed to work with her. As she turned away and closed her eyes, she said a silent prayer that they would succeed.