The Hades Factor

CHAPTER THIRTY EIGHT

At last count, nearly a million had died worldwide. Tragically, hundreds of millions were ill with the symptoms of a heavy cold that could be the first onslaught of the deadly virus no one had a scientific name for yet. Hysteria swept across the hemispheres like the four horsemen of the Apocalypse. In the United States, hospitals were flooded with the ill and the frightened, and the loss of confidence over the past few days had driven down the stock market by a shocking fifty percent.

In President Castilla's private office in the White House Treaty Room, a row of colorful Kachina dolls with feather headdresses and leather loincloths stood on the marble mantelpiece. As he studied them, he could almost hear the heavy, rhythmic stamp of Indian feet and the hortatory medicine chants to save the world.

He had left the frantic West Wing to find respite in his home office so he could polish an important speech he was scheduled to deliver to a dinner of Midwest party leaders in Chicago next week. But he could not write. The words seemed trivial.

Would any of them even be alive next week?

He answered his own question: Not unless some miracle stopped the raging pestilence that had been loosed upon the world, and that would take more than the dances and chants of Kachinas, real or imaginary.

He pushed the legal pad and its offending words away. He was about to stand and leave the room when a heavy knock sounded on the closed door.

Samuel Adams Castilla stared at it. For a second, he held his breath. “Come in.”

Surgeon General Jesse Oxnard entered, not running but walking very fast. Behind him, HHS Secretary Nancy Petrelli trotted to keep up. White House Chief of Staff Charles Ouray strode in after her. Bringing up the rear was Secretary of State Norman Knight, who carried his metal-rimmed reading glasses as if he had just pulled them from his nose. He looked solemn and uneasy.

But Surgeon General Oxnard's heavy jowls quivered with excitement. “They're out of danger, sir!” His thick mustache pumped up and down as he continued, “The volunteer virus victims… Blanchard's serum cured them. Every last one!”

Nancy Petrelli was triumphant in a baby-blue knit suit: “They're recovering rapidly, sir. All of them.” She nodded her silver head. “It's like a miracle.”

“Thank God.” The president slumped back into his chair as if he had suddenly gone weak. “You're absolutely sure, Jesse? Nancy?”

“Yessir,” Nancy Petrelli assured him.

“Absolutely,” the surgeon general enthused.

“What's the status at Blanchard?”

“Victor Tremont is waiting to be told to start shipping the serum.”

Charles Ouray explained, “He's waiting for the FDA to approve it.” The White House chief of staff's voice had an ominous tone. He crossed thick arms over his round paunch. “Director Cormano over there says that'll take at least three months.”

“Three months? God in heaven.” The president reached for his phone. “Zora, get me Henry Cormano over at the FDA. Right now!” He returned the handset to its cradle. He stared at it, outraged. “Are we all to perish under our own stupidity?”

The secretary of state cleared his throat. “The FDA is there to protect us from the mistakes of overeagerness and fear, Mr. President. That's why we have the agency.”

The president's lips turned down with irritation. “There's a time to know when the fear is so big and so real that the protection is irrelevant, Norm. When the caution is more dangerous than the possible mistake.”

The phone buzzed, and President Castilla snatched it.

“Cormano―” he began and then sat in smoldering silence, foot tapping impatiently, as the FDA director stated his case. At last the president snapped, “Okay, Cormano, hold it. What can happen that's worse than what is happening? Uh-huh. Dammit, it's horrible now.” He listened for another angry minute. “Henry, listen to rne. Really listen. The rest of the world will approve this serum now that it's cured victims of a virus you scientists can't even tell me where it came from. You want Americans to be the only ones continuing to die while you `protect' them? Yes, I know that's unfair, but it's what they'll say and it's true. Approve the serum, Henry. Then you can write a long memo blasting me with why you didn't want to and what a goddamned ogre I am.” He paused to listen, gave up, and shouted, “No! Do it now!”

Castilla slammed the phone into its cradle and glared at everyone in the Treaty Room until his gaze settled on the surgeon general.

He barked, “When can they ship?”

Jesse Oxnard shot back, “Tomorrow afternoon.”

“They'll need to pay their costs,” Nancy Petrelli pointed out. “Plus a reasonable return on investment. It's what we agreed to, and it's fair.”

“Money will be wired tomorrow,” the president decided, “right after the first batch leaves their lab.”

“What if a nation can't pay?” Nancy Petrelli asked.

“Advanced nations will have to cover the impoverished nations' costs,” the president told them. “It's been arranged.”

Secretary of State Knight was shocked. “The pharmaceutical company wants money up front?”

Chief of Staff Ouray scowled. “I thought this was pro bono.”

The surgeon general shook his head, chiding them. “No one provides vaccines or serums for nothing, Charlie. You think the flu vaccine we want everyone in the nation to have every winter is free?”

Nancy Petrelli explained, “Blanchard incurred enormous expense developing the biotechnology and facilities to produce the antiserum in quantity to see if it could be done so we'd have such facilities in the future. They expected to recoup over a long period. But now we need it all and fast. They're way out on a financial limb.”

“I don't know about this, Mr. President,” Norman Knight worried. “I guess I have some reservations about `miracles.' ”

“Especially when they don't come cheap,” Ouray added, an edge of sarcasm in his voice.

The president slammed his fist onto his desk, jumped up, and paced into the center of the room. “Dammit, Charlie, what's the matter with you? Haven't you been listening these last few days?” He prowled back behind his desk and leaned over it, facing them. “Almost one million dead! Untold millions who could be dying any day. And you want to argue about dollars? About a reasonable return for stockholders? In this country? We preach that economic view as the only right and fair way, dammit! We can end the scourge of this awful virus right now. This minute. And it'll be fast and cheap compared to what we spend every year fighting flu, cancer, malaria, and AIDS.” He spun on his heel to peer out the Treaty Room window as if looking out on the entire planet. “It could really be a miracle, people!”

They waited unspeaking, awed by the righteous rage of their taciturn leader.

But when he turned to face them again, he had calmed himself. His voice was quiet and compelling. “Call it God's will, if you like. You cynics and secularists are always doubting the unknown, the spiritual. Well, there are more things on heaven and earth, gentlemen and lady, than are dreamed of in your philosophies. If that's too highbrow for you, how about `Don't look a gift horse in the friggin' mouth'?”

“It doesn't appear it's going to be exactly a gift,” Ouray said.

“Oh, for God's sake, Charlie. Give it up. It's a miracle. Let's enjoy it. Let's celebrate. We'll have a big ceremony accepting the first shipment up there at Blanchard's headquarters in the Adirondacks. A beautiful setting. I'll fly there, too.” He smiled as the ramifications struck him. At last there was good news, and he knew exactly how to use it. His voice rose again, but this time in excited anticipation. “In fact, let's bring all the world leaders in by closed-circuit TV. I'll give Tremont the Medal of Freedom. We're going to stop this epidemic in its tracks and honor those who've helped us.” He gave a wicked grin. “Of course, it's not too shabby for our political aspirations either. After all, we've got to think of the next election.”

Amid the gilt and marble of his office, the deputy minister smiled.

The important Englishman said, “Everyone who goes into Amazonia needs a permit from your ministry, correct?”

“Very true,” the deputy minister agreed.

“Including scientific expeditions?”

“Especially.”

“These records are open to the public?”

“Of course. We are a democracy, yes?”

“A fine democracy,” the Englishman agreed. “Then I need to examine all the permits granted twelve and thirteen years ago. If it's not too much trouble.”

“It is no trouble at all,” the deputy minister said cooperatively and smiled again. “But, alas, the records from those years were destroyed during the time of a different government.”

“Destroyed? How?”

“I am not certain.” The deputy minister spread his hands in apology. “It was a long time ago. There was much turmoil from unimportant factions that wished a coup. Sendero Luminoso and others. You understand.”

“I'm not certain I do.” The important Englishman smiled, too.

“Ah?”

“I don't recall an attack on the interior ministry.”

“Perhaps when they were being photocopied.”

“You should have a record of that.”

The deputy minister was unperturbed. “As I said, a different government.”

“I will speak with the minister himself, if I may.”

“Of course, but, alas, he is out of the city.”

“Really? That's odd, since I saw him only last night at a concert.”

“You are mistaken. He is on vacation. In Japan, I believe.”

“It must have been someone else I saw.”

“The minister is unremarkable in appearance.”

“There you are, then.” The Englishman smiled as he stood and bowed slightly to the deputy minister, who returned a pleasant nod. The Englishman left.

Outside on the wide boulevard of the elegant old city famed for its colonial architecture, the Englishman, whose name was Carter Letissier, flagged down a taxi and gave the address of his Miraflores house. In the taxi, his smile evaporated. He sat back and swore.

The bastard had been bought. And recently, too. Otherwise, the minister would have allowed Letissier to waste his time in the files only to discover the records really were missing. Instead, the records must not have been destroyed yet. But Letissier also knew they would be gone by the time he could get an appointment with the minister. He glanced at his watch. The ministry was closing. Given the normal lazy habits of Peruvian deputy ministers, the records would not actually disappear until tomorrow morning at the earliest.

Three hours later, the grand offices of the Ministry of the Interior were dark. Armed with his 10mm Browning semiautomatic, Carter Letissier broke in dressed completely in black and wearing the black boots and antiflash hood with respirator of the British SAS counterterrorist commando. At one time he had been a captain of the 22nd SAS Regiment, a proud and memorable period in his life.

He went directly to the filing cabinet he had learned contained Amazonian documents, found the section on permits, and extracted the folders for the two years he needed. He erected and flicked on the minute lamp he had brought with him. Under it, he opened the folders and photographed the pages with his minicamera. As soon as he had finished, he returned everything to where it belonged, collapsed his light, and slipped back out into the night.

In his private darkroom in the Miraflores house, Letissier, now a wellknown importer of cameras and equipment to Peru, developed the film. When the negatives were dry, he made large prints.

Grinning, he dialed a long series of numbers and waited. “Letissier here. I have the names of those who led scientific teams to the location you wished in the years you wished. You have paper and pencil ready, Peter?”

CHAPTER THIRTY NINE

The old industrial city of Syracuse was nestled in the autumn-colored hills of central New York state, a land of rolling farmland, ample rivers, and independent-minded people who enjoyed the great outdoors from the safety of their sprawling lakeside metropolis. Jonathan Smith knew all this because his grandparents had lived here, and he had visited them yearly. A decade ago, they had retired to Florida, where they had fished, surfed, and happily gambled until first his grandmother had died of a heart attack, and then within three months his grandfather had followed, too lonely to go on.

Jon gazed out the window of the rented Oldsmobile that Randi was driving. As they sped along, she shifted lanes, preparing to leave Interstate 81 going south to join Route 5 east toward where they hoped to find Marty. From here he could see familiar landmarks in the central city ― the historic brick Armory, the Weighlock Building, and Syracuse University's recent Carrier Dome. He was glad the old buildings were still standing, an affirmation that there was some sort of continuity in this precarious world.

He was tired and tense. It had been a long trip from the Iraqi desert to Syracuse, New York. As Gabriel Donoso had promised, a Harrier jet had picked them up and flown them to Incirlik Air Base in Turkey. There Randi had finessed a ride on a C-17 cargo jet. Once aloft, she had sweet-talked the copilot out of his notebook computer, and Jon had tapped into the Internet to search OASIS, the Asperger's syndrome Web site. Finally he had found Marty's message on the ABCs of Parenting page, part of the Web site's extended Web ring:

“That's the message?” Randi had read it over his shoulder skeptically. “Your name's not even on it. And there sure as hell isn't any `Zellerbach' mentioned.”

“I'm Coughing,” he explained. “Think: Smith Brothers cough drops. My uncle who treated Marty swore by them. Marty and I joked about it all the time. Horrible-tasting black things. And what does a wolf do?”

“Howls.” She rolled her eyes. “Howell. Unbelievable. That's really stretching it.”

He smiled. “That's why we agreed to address our messages to each other that way. We figured they'd expect us to use E-mail to communicate, but going through the Asperger's site gave us a place to hide out, as long as we came up with some kind of personal code. For Marty and me, since we grew up together, it's no problem. We have a lot of shared history to draw on.”

“So he fashioned this message from allusions the three of you would understand but with any luck they wouldn't.” She crouched next to him. “Okay, I'm hooked. Translate it.”

“The first two things are obvious: Marty and Peter were `attacked,' and had to `separate.' But Marty `stayed home.' That is, he's in the RV someplace and may still not know where Peter is.”

“Clear as a bell,” she said with more than a little sarcasm. “So where are Mr. Zellerbach and the RV?”

“In Syracuse, New York, of course.”

She frowned. “Enlighten me.”

“ `Hart's erroneous comedy.' ”

“That tells you he's in Syracuse?”

“Absolutely. Rogers and Hart's Broadway musical The Boys from Syracuse was based on Shakespeare's The Comedy of Errors. So, Marty's in the RV somewhere in or near Syracuse.”

“And `five ways east?' ”

“Ah! That was particularly clever of him. I'll bet we'll find him on some kind of Highway `five' on the `east' side leading into Syracuse.”

She was doubtful. “I'll believe it when I see it.”

They had landed at Andrews Air Force Base outside Washington and caught a ride over to Dulles, where they had eaten breakfast and bought new clothes ― simple dark trousers, turtlenecks, and jackets. They had discarded what they had worn in Baghdad and boarded a commercial flight for Syracuse. They had been watchful the entire morning, their gazes never ceasing to look for anyone too curious. For Jon, the entire trip had been one of fighting off tension between the two of them. He was getting over the shock of looking at Randi and thinking for a moment she was Sophia. But still, the fact was unchangeable: The face, voice, and body were so close that it kept his pain simmering. He was amazed that they worked together as well as they did, and he was grateful for her help in getting him out of Iraq and back into the United States.

A half-hour ago they had landed at Hancock International Airport northeast of Syracuse, where Randi had rented the Oldsmobile Cutlass.

Now they were on Route 5 ― there was no Interstate 5 ― watching both sides of the road as they skirted the city.

“ `Colored lake green,' ” he read. “Something on this highway refers to the color green, and it involves a lake. A landmark. Maybe a motel.”

“If you've interpreted the gibberish right,” Randi pointed out, “we could pass something like that a hundred times and not notice.”

He shook his head. “I'll know. Marty wouldn't give us anything that hard to figure out once we'd gotten this far. Keep driving.”

They cruised through the suburb of Fayetteville, still searching for the final references in the message. They were growing discouraged. They passed country clubs, malls, car dealerships, used-car lots, and all the other satellite businesses of the citified suburb that had once been a country town. Nothing rang a bell.

Suddenly Jon froze. Then his arm shot out and he pointed. “There!” On their left was a pole sign at the entrance to a large park: GREEN LAKES STATE PARK. “Both `lake' and `green.' ” His voice was excited. “The message says `or thereabouts,' so he's got to be holed up somewhere nearby.”

Randi's gaze was on the traffic as she expertly moved from lane to lane so they could keep their slower speed without interfering with the flow. “Looks as if you've been right so far. Let's see if I can help. Okay, now it refers to a letter that's been stolen and the message is signed `Edgar A.' ” She drummed her fingers on the steering wheel. “What strikes me is Edgar Allan Poe's `The Purloined Letter.' Does that help?”

Jon was staring off into the distance, trying to put himself in Marty's place. Marty was an electronics wizard, but he also enjoyed arcane information and trivia. “That's it! So where's a missing letter best hidden? In a letter rack, of course, with other letters where no one will notice. The best place to hide something is in plain sight.”

“Then your friend is saying he's hidden where we can see him. What the hell does that mean?”

“He's talking about the RV, not about himself. Turn the car and go back the way we came.”

Annoyed at his bossiness, Randi pulled off into a side street, Uturned, and spun back onto the road toward Syracuse itself. “Did you see something earlier?”

Smith's blue eyes were alight. “Remember those car dealerships lining the road on the other side of Fayetteville? I think one of them was an RV lot.”

Randi began to laugh. “That's just dumb enough to be where he is.”

Watching carefully, they drove through Fayetteville once more. The city seemed longer, more chaotic. Jon was getting impatient.

Then he saw it. “That's it. On the right.” His voice was compressed excitement.

She said, “I see it.”

Ahead spread a mammoth lot crammed with a variety of recreational vehicles, new and used. Sunlight played across them, and the metallic vehicles glowed. There was no showroom, only a wood-sided sales office where a man wearing sunglasses and a polyester suit sat in a lawn chair in front, reading a newspaper.

“Doesn't look busy. That could be a break for us.” Randi drove past, turned the corner, and parked in the shade of a large flaming maple.

Jon decided, “We'd better scout it on foot to be safe.”

They walked back, alert for surveillance. Cars and trucks continued along the busy road. No one sat inside parked vehicles. The few pedestrians strode past without paying much attention. No one leaned against the buildings across the street, pretending to be waiting for someone while in reality they were on watch. From where they walked, they could see the man sitting in front of the sales office. About forty feet distant, he turned the page of his paper, engrossed.

Everything appeared normal.

Jon and Randi exchanged a look and quietly stepped over a loose chain that fenced the lot. They slipped between two RVs and searched the packed area. They sped past row after row of campers, trailers, and RVs. Smith was beginning to think he had been wrong, that this was not where Marty had gone to ground. Finally they reached the last line of vehicles, which backed up to a stand of sycamores, maples, and oaks. A breeze rustled through the woods, disturbing the mounds of colored leaves that had already fallen.

“Jesus.” He let out a long, shocked breath. “There it is.” Peter's RV was at the very back among a long row of dusty used vehicles that appeared to have been for sale a long time. Its metal sides had been ripped up by what had to have been gunfire, and several of its windows were shot out.

“Wow.” Randi took a deep breath. “What happened to it?”

Jon shook his head worriedly. “Doesn't look good.”

No one was in sight. They split up, and, weapons in hand, reconnoitered. When they saw nothing suspicious even in the woods, they approached the trashed vehicle.

“I don't hear anything inside,” Randi whispered.

“Maybe Mart's sleeping.”

He reached to try the door, and it opened in his hand as if it had been closed so hurriedly that the latch had failed to catch.

They jumped back, their weapons ready. The door swung back and forth in eerie silence. No one appeared. After another minute, Smith climbed up into the living room. Behind him, Randi aimed her mini-Uzi around the interior, her fierce black gaze sweeping it.

Jon called softly, “Mart? Peter?”

There was no answer.

Jon padded forward across the cramped interior. Randi, her back to him, advanced in the other direction toward the driver's cab. A box of Cheerios, Marty's favorite dry cereal, stood beside a bowl on the kitchen table. The spoon was still in the bowl, as was a puddle of congealing milk. One bunk had been slept in. It was a jumble of sheets and blankets. The computer was on, but opened only to the desktop, and the bathroom was empty.

Randi returned. “No one up front.”

“No one anywhere,” Jon said. “But Marty was here not long ago.” He shook his head. “I don't like it. He hates to go out in public or to risk contact with strangers. Where could he have gone? And why?”

“What about your other friend? The MI6 person?”

“Peter Howell. No sign of him either.”

They studied the silence and emptiness. There was a sense of abandonment. Jon was at a loss and very worried about Marty and Peter.

Randi was peering at the interior, at the bullet holes that had eaten up sections of the walls and destroyed some of the hanging maps. “There was one hell of a battle, from the looks of it.”

He nodded. “My guess is Peter must have had armor sheeting built in under the RV's metal skin. Look at where the shots landed. The only way the bullets got inside was through the windows.”

“And the fire fight obviously wasn't here. We'd have seen signs outside.”

“Agreed. Marty, Peter, or both escaped in the RV and were hiding out here.”

“We'd better search more thoroughly.”

Jon sat at the computer to look for what Marty had been working on, but Marty had applied some kind of password that blocked him. For a half hour he tried to break through. He keyed in the name of Marty's street in Washington, his birth date, the names of his parents, the name of the street where he had grown up, their elementary school. They were all traditional sources for passwords, and Marty had probably used them in the past. But not now.

Smith was shaking his head in discouragement when Randi called out. He turned quickly.

“Look! Now we know who has the serum!”

She was sitting on the small sofa, all long legs and blond dishevelment. As she leaned forward, her blond curls fell toward her eyes, and her pink lips were pursed in thought. He could see her long dark lashes even across the room. Her twill trousers had pulled up a little, and her slender ankles showed above her tennis shoes. Her breasts were outlined high and round under her tight white turtleneck. She was beautiful. With the intense expression on her face, she looked so like Sophia, and for a moment he regretted agreeing to work with her.

Then he pushed it all away. He knew he had made the right decision, and they had to get on with it. “What have you got?”

She had been going through the piles on the coffee table. She held up a copy of The New York Times so he could see the front-page banner headline:

He crossed the room in three long steps. “I recognize the company name. What does the article say?”

She read aloud:

Jon and Randi stared at each other.

“The article says it was a decade-long project,” he said.

“You're thinking about Desert Storm.”

“You bet I am,” he said angrily. “Nineteen ninety-one. Maybe they had nothing to do with infecting the twelve victims. This is a monkey virus, and we can't be sure it's the same virus that we've been working on, even though the serum apparently cures it. But I've got to wonder. Now they come forward with a serum? Very convenient.”

“Too convenient,” she agreed. “Especially since we know three were cured last year in Iraq and three here just last week. But as far as we know, it's a different virus.”

“Suspicious as hell.”

She said, “You don't believe it's a different virus.”

“As a scientist, it's such a remote possibility that the only alternative that comes to mind is some madman from the company stole it and decided to play God. Or Satan, if you will.”

“But how did the epidemic break out? Awfully good timing that Blanchard happens to have a serum that works on monkeys and apparently on people. How could Blanchard or anyone know it'd break out now, or ever?”

He grimaced. “I've been wondering the same thing.”

They stared at each other in silence.

That was when they heard a faint sound behind the RV. A twig snapped.

Randi swept up her Uzi, and Jon pulled the big Beretta from his waistband. In the cramped RV, they listened intently. No more twigs broke, but there was a light rustle of something moving among fallen leaves.

It could have been the wind or an animal, but Randi did not believe it. Her chest tightened. “One,” she estimated. “No more.”

Jon agreed, but: “It could be a scout sent ahead, the rest watching. Maybe from the trees back there.”

“Or a diversion, and the others out front.”

The sound ceased. There was nothing but the distant traffic.

“You take the back,” he said. “I'll take the front.”

He flattened against the wall next to a front window, inched to the edge, and looked out toward the door and studied the row of used RVs. He saw no movement.

“Quiet back here,” Randi whispered as she scrutinized the woods that formed the back perimeter of the lot.

“There're too many blind spots,” he decided. “We'll have to go out.”

Randi nodded. “You go left. I'll go right. I'll lead.”

“I'll lead.” He raised the Beretta and reached to fling open the door.

Suddenly there was a loud click and a scraping of wood on wood behind them.

They whirled like a pair of synchronous swimmers at the Olympics, their weapons ready.

Surprised, they watched four squares of the large geometric pattern on the vinyl floor swing up, instantly followed by a Heckler & Koch MP5 submachine gun.

Jon instantly recognized the weapon. “Peter!” He forced himself to relax the finger on his trigger. “It's okay, Randi.”

She frowned and stared suspiciously as the lined, leathery face of Peter Howell emerged as far as his shoulders. He wore a trench coat over his black commando clothes.

Instantly he pointed the H&K at Randi. “Who?”

Jon said, “Randi Russell. Sophia's sister. She's CIA. It's a long story.”

“Tell me later,” Peter said. “They've got Marty.”

CHAPTER FORTY

Marty's head rotated as he gazed around the windowless room with its dank basement smell and single cot. He concentrated hard to see it. Where he sat tied to a chair with thin nylon rope, his mind was floating in a luminescent cloud above everyone's heads, dazzling and airy and all-knowing. He loved the feeling of floating, his heavy body so light he seemed effervescent. Part of him knew he had been too long between doses of Mideral, but the rest of him did not care.

He was annoyed. “You must realize all this is absolutely ridiculous at your ages. Cops and robbers! Really! I assure you I have much more important matters to attend to than sitting here answering your stupid questions. I demand you take me back to the pharmacy instantly!”

His voice was firm, even arrogant, and in the chair in the basement room of Victor Tremont's grand lodge he drew himself up defiantly. These people would not intimidate him! With whom did they think they were dealing? Zounds, the rascals and poltroons would soon know that it was unwise, even dangerous, to attempt to do battle with him!

“We do not play games, Mr. Zellerbach,” Nadal al-Hassan said coldly. “We will know where Smith is, and we will know at this moment.”

“No one can know where Jon Smith is! The world cannot contain him or me. We fly through a different time, in another universe. Your puny world does not have enough gravity to hold us. We are infinite! Infinite!” Marty blinked up at the pockmarked Arab. “My goodness, your face. How terrible. Smallpox, I should guess. You're lucky to have survived. Do you know how many died over the centuries from that dreadful scourge? How long and at what cost it has taken the world to eradicate the disease? There are still two or three test tubes of it in deep freezers. Why―”

Marty rambled on as if sitting at his ease in some armchair and discoursing with a group of students on the history of viral diseases. “There's a new virus breaking out right now. It's deadly, Jon tells me. He says he thinks someone actually has it and is killing people with it. Can you imagine?”

“What else does Jon say about this virus?” Victor Tremont asked, smiling and friendly.

“Oh, a great deal. He's a scientist, you know.”

“Perhaps he knows who has it? What they plan to do with it?”

“Well, I assure you, we―” Marty stopped and his eyes narrowed.

“Ah, you are trying to trick me! Me! You fools, you cannot outwit The Paladin! I will speak no more.” He clamped his lips tightly together.

Exasperated, al-Hassan muttered an Arabic curse and raised his fist.

Victor Tremont put out a hand. “No. Not yet. The medicine he got at the pharmacy where Maddux found him is Mideral, one of a new family of central nervous system stimulants. With what you learned from his doctor, we know he has a type of autism. From his behavior, I'd say he's off the medicine and irrational.”

“Then can we learn nothing about where Jonathan Smith is?” al-Hassan asked.

“On the contrary. Administer his Mideral. Within twenty minutes, he will calm and come crashing back to reality. If his condition is Asperger's syndrome, he may be exceptionally intelligent. But the Mideral will slow him down and make him a little dull. At the same time, he'll be able to recognize he's in danger. We should be able to get what we need from him then.”

Marty sang loudly. He barely noticed when al-Hassan untied one of his hands and gave him a pill and a glass of water. He stopped to swallow the pill then resumed singing as al-Hassan tied him again.

Victor Tremont and the Arab watched as his vocalizing slowly faded, his arrogant pose slumped against the ropes, and his feverishly bright eyes turned quiet.

“I think you can question him now,” Tremont said.

Al-Hassan smiled his wolf smile and walked around to face Marty. “So, let us begin again, Mr. Zellerbach, eh?”

Marty looked up at the lean, dour Arab. He cowered on the chair. The man was too close, and he looked evil. The other man ― the tall one ― stood on Marty's other side. He was too close as well, and too menacing. Marty could smell them. Strangers. He could barely breathe. He wanted to make them go away. Leave him alone.

“Where is your friend Jon Smith?”

Marty quavered in the chair. “Ir-Iraq.”

“Good. He was in Iraq. But he is now back in America. Where will he go now?”

Marty blinked up at them as they leaned closer, eager. He remembered posting the message to Jon on the Web site. Maybe Jon had already found it and was heading toward the RV. He fervently hoped so.

He felt his teeth grind. No! No, he would not tell them. “I ― I don't know.”

The Arab muttered another curse and swung his fist. Marty screamed with fear.

Pain exploded in his head, and a great wave of black rolled over him.

“Damn.” Victor Tremont knotted his fists. “He's unconscious.”

“But I did not strike him with that much force,” al-Hassan protested.

Tremont scowled with disgust. “We'll have to wait until he comes to and try something less physical.”

“There are ways.”

“But with him, it will be tricky not to kill him. You saw how excitable he is.”

They stared in frustration at the silent Marty, whose head hung limply forward, his body lashed to the chair.

“Or,” Victor Tremont began to smile. He paused as his shrewd mind worked on an idea. “I have a much better way to find what we need to know.” He nodded. “Yes, a much better idea.”

Peter Howell peeled off his trench coat to reveal his black commando suit. His pale gaze surveyed the bullet-spattered interior of his high-tech RV. Brief sadness showed on his lined face, and then it was gone, overtaken by complete concentration as he walked rapidly through it, checking.

“What happened to Marty?” Jon stared at the Englishman's back as he turned from the driver's seat. “Do you know where they've taken him?”

“Spotted him at a chemist's a few blocks from here. Pharmacy to you Yanks. There were three.” Peter's wiry body bristled with energy as he strode toward them. “The leader was that short, heavy fellow we saw back at the ambush on the dirt road in the Sierras.”

Randi said, “That means the people with the virus have him?”

Jon grimaced. “That's what it means. Poor Mart.”

“Will he talk?” Randi asked.

“If he had, I'd think they'd be here by now,” Peter said.

“But he will?”

“He's not strong,” Smith admitted. He described Asperger's syndrome.

“That little fellow is a lot tougher and shrewder than one would imagine, Jon,” Peter decided. “He'll find a way not to crack.”

“Not forever. Not many can. We've got to get him out of there.”

“Do we know where he is?” Randi asked Peter.

Peter shook his head. “Unfortunately, I was on foot and unable to follow the car they took him away in.”

“How did you figure out where to find him?” Jon asked.

“Located the RV from his message about an hour ago.” Peter reported how he had found the RV empty, just as they had. But he had also found drafts of a fake doctor's prescription printed out from the computer. “Marty must've forged a prescription for his Mideral. He was almost out of his pills last night when we separated.” He described the gunfight in the park.

Jon shook his head. “How do you think they found you?”

“I figure they must've been tailing us all the way from Detrick just looking for the most agreeable moment to attack. I thought I'd shaken any possible pursuit, but it would seem they're quite good.” His gaze settled on bullet holes that had pocked a map of Third World countries and shook his head. “I went looking for the closest chemist's shops. I got to the third one just as Marty came out and those three seized him.”

“No indication on the car who they were?”

“None, I'm afraid.”

“Then the only way we're going to find him is to find them.”

“Right. A serious problem. I may have a solution, but first fill me in quickly about Iraq.”

Smith hit the high points of his investigation in Baghdad until the Republican Guards' attack in the tire shop.

The Englishman's wrinkles expanded in a wide grin at Randi. His gaze swept over her in appreciation. “The CIA is improving the quality of its agents, miss. You're a welcome change over the usual sobersides in their three-piece suits. Just a garrulous old man's opinion, mind you.”

“Thanks. You're not so bad yourself.” Randi smiled back. “I'll be sure to pass on your recommendation to the director.”

“You do that.” Peter turned to Jon. “What happened next?” His face went quickly sober again as he listened to what they had learned from Dr. Mahuk in the pediatric hospital, and how they had been captured by the Baghdad police who had apparently been in the pay of whoever was behind the virus.

“So three victims were cured in Iraq, too?” The Englishman swore. “A diabolical experiment. Don't like to think about the money and power that can actually accomplish anything in that closed-off country. Of course your trip confirmed the virus's roots in the Gulf War.” He paused. “My turn. Got a little piece of news that blows the lid off this whole nasty business. I believe I know what Sophia discovered that was so important in Giscours's report from the Prince Leopold Institute.”

Jon inhaled, excited. “What?”

“Peru. It was Peru all along.” He described Sophia's field trip there twelve years before as an anthropology student from Syracuse. With that small piece of information, he had contacted a former associate in Lima, who had secured a list of scientists who had trekked into the Peruvian Amazonia that same year.

Smith asked instantly, “You have the list?”

A grin of satisfaction spread across Peter's brown, leathery face. “Does a fox find the heather? Come, children.”

As he stalked to the kitchen table, he pulled out two folded sheets of paper from somewhere inside his black commando outfit. He lay them out, flicked on the overhead light, and the three of them bent over, quickly reading the names.

Peter explained, “There were a lot more in Amazonia that year, but not at the same times as Sophia.”

The fourteenth leaped out at both Jon and Randi.

“That's it!” Randi said. “Victor Tremont.”

Smith nodded grimly. “CEO and chairman of Blanchard Pharmaceutical. The president's going to give him a medal today for saving the world with his serum. The great humanitarian, working his company around the clock to produce it while he sells it only at cost.”

“Bloody hell.” Peter shook his head. “Believe that, and you'll believe we Brits acquired our empire to bring civilization to the natives.”

“We already knew Blanchard had the serum,” Randi said, thinking about the newspaper story. “Now it seems Tremont himself brought the virus from Peru.”

Jon nodded. “And because he's a scientist, he could've recognized the potential of a serum for such a deadly virus and somehow managed to infect a few people during Desert Storm. He must've known it wasn't very contagious and that it was slow-acting, lying in the body for years like HIV.”

“Good God,” Peter breathed. “So he started his secret testing on humans in Iraq ten years ago, when he had no guarantee he'd ever develop a serum to cure them when the virus went into its last fatal stages? He's a monster!”

“Maybe it's worse than that. It's very convenient for the virus to break out now.” Jon's eyes were icy blue. “Somehow he made the pandemic start so he could cure it and make a fortune in the process.”

Shocked silence filled the RV. Smith had spoken the words they had not wanted to hear. But it was the truth, and the implications hung in the air like a sharp ax waiting to fall.

Randi finally said, “How?”

“I don't know,” Jon admitted. “We've got to check Blanchard's records. Damn, I wish Marty were here.”

“Perhaps I can substitute,” Peter said. “I'm pretty fair with a computer, and I've been watching him use his own special programs for days.”

“I tried, but he was using a password.”

Peter gave a grim smile. “That I know, too. Typical of Marty's odd sense of humor. The password is Stanley the Cat.”

In the deep recesses of whatever honesty and integrity he had left, Mercer Haldane had suspected what Victor Tremont had never admitted: Somehow Victor had caused the pandemic that was sweeping the world. Now, as he looked down through his office window at the platform and giant TV screen that were being assembled for this afternoon's ceremony, he could keep silent no more. God in heaven, the president himself was coming to send off the first official batch of serum as if Blanchard and Victor were Mother Teresa, Gandhi, and Einstein rolled up into one.

For days the moral battle had raged inside him.

Once he had been an honorable man and had taken great pride in his integrity. But somewhere along the line of building Blanchard into a world-class pharmaceutical giant, he realized now he had lost his way. The result was that Victor Tremont was to receive America's revered Medal of Freedom for what could be the most despicable act the globe had ever seen.

Mercer Haldane could not tolerate that. No matter what would happen to him… even though he would probably have to take the blame… so be it. He had to stop this tragic farce. Some things were more important than money or success.

He reached for his phone. “Mrs. Pendragon? Please get the surgeon general's office in Washington. I believe you have the number.”

“Of course, sir. I'll put the call through immediately.”

Mercer Haldane leaned back in his executive desk chair to wait. He rested his neck against the cool leather and put his hands over his eyes.

But another wave of doubt assaulted him. With a shock, he remembered again he could go to prison.

Lose his family, his position, his fortune. He grimaced.

On the other hand, if he said nothing, Victor would make a great deal of money for all of them. He knew that.

He shook his white head. He was being a fool. Worse, a sentimental old fool. What did all those faceless millions really matter? They would die one way or another anyway, and the way life was, most would not expire from natural causes but from disease, hunger, war, revolution, earthquake, typhoon, accident, or an angry lover. There were too many people anyway, especially in the Third World, and the overpopulation increased geometrically every year.

The result was nature would strike back anyway, as it always did, with famines, plagues, wars, and cosmic disasters.

What did it matter if he and Victor and the company grew wealthy on the deaths of millions?

He sighed, because the truth was. it mattered to him.

A person controlled his fate. He remembered what the Prussians said: A man's worth began only when he was willing to die for his principles.

Mercer Haldane had been trained on principles. At one time, he had cherished them. If he still had a soul to save, the only way he could do it was to stop Victor Tremont.

Inwardly he continued his war, his eyes closed, his neck against the chair pillow. As the conflict raged on, he felt ever more weak and miserable. But in the end, he knew he was going to tell the surgeon general everything. He had to. He would pay any cost to know he had done the right thing.

When he heard the door open, he uncovered his eyes and swung around in the chair. “Is something wrong with the connection, Mrs. Pendragon?”

“Lost your nerve, Mercer?”

Victor Tremont stood in the office. He was a towering figure in his expensive business suit and polished kid shoes. His thick, iron-gray hair glowed in the overhead lights, and his distinctive face with its aquiline features and faintly haughty expression glowered down on Haldane. He radiated the kind of self-assurance that commanded boardrooms with the ease of a great maestro before a world-class orchestra.

Haldane lifted his old eyes to gaze at his former protégé. He said evenly, “Found my conscience, Victor. It's not too late for you to rediscover yours. Let my call to the surgeon general go through.”

Tremont laughed. “I believe it was Shakespeare who wrote a conscience was a luxury that made cowards of us all. But he was wrong. It makes us victims, Mercer. Losers. And I have no intention of being either.” He paused and scowled. “A man is either the wolf or the deer, and I plan to do the eating.”

Haldane raised his hands, palms up. “For God's sake, Victor, we help people. Our goal is to relieve suffering. `First, do no harm.' We're in the healing business.”

“The hell we are,” Tremont said harshly. “We're in the money business. Profits. That's what counts.”

Haldane could contain himself no longer. “You're an egotistical freak, Victor!” he exploded. “A fiend! I'll tell the surgeon general everything…. I'll―”

“You'll do nothing,” Tremont snapped. “That call's never going to go through. Mrs. Pendragon knows a winner when she sees one.” He slid his hand inside his jacket and withdrew a dark, lethal Glock 9mm pistol. “Nadal!”

Mercer Haldane's old heart pounded. Sweat suddenly bathed him as a tall, pockmarked Arab entered the room. He, too, carried a large pistol.

Paralyzed with fear, Mercer stared from one to the other, speechless.

CHAPTER FORTY ONE

The Christmaslike odor of pine needles permeated the spacious living room of Victor Tremont's lodge. Through the windows, the lake reflected crystalline blue surrounded by the thick green forest. Near the giant fireplace where flames licked high, Bill Griffin sat in a leather club chair. His stocky body gave every appearance of being relaxed. As usual, his brown hair hung limp and unruly to his jacket collar. He crossed his legs and lighted a cigarette.

He smiled a slow smile at Victor Tremont and Nadal al-Hassan and explained calmly, “The trouble was, all of us were working at cross-purposes. Ever since you gave me the order to eliminate Jon Smith, I've been watching three places at once ― his house in Thurmont, the Russell woman's condo in Frederick, and Fort Detrick. No wonder you had a hard time contacting me.”

It was all a lie. He had been hiding in a walk-up apartment in Greenwich Village that belonged to a woman friend from the old days in New York. But when he had seen the news story about the president's honoring Blanchard Pharmaceuticals and the orders that were rolling in for the serum, he had known he had to return to make certain he received his fair share.

And there was still the issue of Smith. “I'd expected to take out Smith when he left Detrick,” he explained, “but I couldn't get a decent opportunity, and after that night he never showed up again at any of the other places. He vanished into thin air. Maybe he gave up or took leave. Or went somewhere to grieve for the woman.” He hoped that was true, but knowing Jon, he doubted it.

Victor Tremont stood looking out the picture window at the trees as the sun reflected scattered bursts of light on the lake's surface. His voice was thoughtful. “No. He hasn't taken leave to mourn.”

Nadal al-Hassan sat one hip of his emaciated frame onto the arm of the high sofa that faced the fireplace. “In any case, it is irrelevant now. We know where he is, and he will soon be no more problem.”

Griffin's cheeks widened in another smile. “Hell, that's a relief.” He added almost as an afterthought, “Maddux on him?”

Tremont left the window and bent to his humidor to extract a cigar. He offered the humidor to Griffin, who lifted his cigarette and shook his head. Nadal al-Hassan, as a strict Muslim, did not smoke.

As Tremont lighted the cigar, he spoke over his hands and the rising smoke and aroma: “Actually, Maddux has captured one of Smith's friends. A computer geek named Martin Zellerbach. We'll soon make Zellerbach divulge where Smith is hiding in Syracuse.”

“Smith is in Syracuse?” Griffin seemed alarmed. He gazed accusingly at al-Hassan. “That close to us? How the hell did he get so near?”

Al-Hassan's voice was mild. “By checking back through Russell's life and education. She did her undergraduate work at Syracuse.”

“Where she was studying when she went on the trip to Peru?”

“I'm afraid so.”

“Then he knows about us!”

“I don't think so. At least, not yet.”

Griffin's voice rose. “But, dammit, he will. I'll stop him. This time, I'll―”

Tremont interrupted, “You needn't worry about Smith. I have another job for you. Jack McGraw is up to his nostrils preparing security for the president. The ceremony this afternoon is, of course, a great honor, but it was a last-minute decision. Everyone's scrambling. Plus there are all the media people to deal with. We don't want any interlopers crashing the party. You have FBI experience, so you should be the one to coordinate with the Secret Service.”

Griffin was puzzled. “Of course. You're the boss. But if you're still worried about Smith, then I think―”

“That won't be necessary.” Al-Hassan's voice was definite. “We have it taken care of.”

“How? Who?” Griffin glanced doubtfully at the Arab while inwardly he worried.

“General Caspar has managed to plant a CIA agent with Colonel Smith. She is Russell's sister, and she has a strong personal hatred for him from some old insult. She has been told Smith is a grave danger to the country. She will have no qualms about eliminating him.” AlHassan studied Griffin. “I think we should consider the task completed. For us, Smith is dead.”

Bill Griffin's face remained unchanged. He took a long drag on his cigarette.

Then he nodded, feigning satisfaction tinged with doubt to be consistent with the stance he had taken since he had discovered Smith was a target. They had suspected him since the night he had warned Jon. His failure to kill him had deepened their distrust. Now they had captured Zellerbach, whom he remembered from high school as a genius, but also as weak and easily frightened. Sooner or later, Marty would break and betray Jon. Plus they had planted Sophia Russell's sister, Randi. That was especially bad. He had heard Jon speak about how much the woman hated him. She would be capable of killing. Any CIA field agent had to be.

With Marty's capture and the infiltration of Randi Russell, Tremont and al-Hassan had their problems under control. Or so they thought.

Griffin stood up, a stocky man with a bland face. “Sounds like the perfect assignment for me. I'll get right on it.”

“Good.” Tremont gave him a dismissive nod of the head. “Use the Cherokee. Nadal and I'll take the Land Rover after we finish our business here. Thanks for coming in, Bill. We were worried about you. Always a pleasure to see you.”

But as Griffin exited, Tremont's expression changed. His gaze cold, he watched the traitor disappear out the door.

Bill Griffin drove the Jeep Cherokee off the road and parked in a dense stand of oaks and birch trees. As he pulled brush around the Cherokee to camouflage it from the road, his mind was a maelstrom of conflict. Somehow he must reach Jon and warn him about Randi and Marty. But at the same time, he did not want to lose everything he had worked for since he had met Victor Tremont and joined the Hades Project two years ago. He was entitled to his share of the good things along with all the other thieving bastards who ran this world. More than entitled after his years of service to the goddamn ungrateful cheats and liars who ran the Bureau and the country.

But he would not let them kill Jon. That far he would not go.

He waited among the trees, watching the rustic lodge and the matching outbuildings. Insects buzzed. The aroma of sun-warmed forest duff scented the air. His pulse began to race.

After fifteen minutes, he heard the Land Rover. With relief, he watched it pass where he hid and disappear southeast among the trees. Tremont and al-Hassan would reach the main country road after a few more miles and drive on into Long Lake village to prepare for the ceremony. That did not give him much time.

Urgency swept through him as he drove back to the lodge, parked behind the staff wing, and hurried to a cyclone-fenced enclosure at the edge of the woods, out of sight of the lodge. He unlocked the gate and whistled softly. The large Doberman appeared silently from inside a wood doghouse. His brown coat shone in the mountain light. His sharply pointed ears periscoped forward as his intelligent eyes never strayed from Griffin.

Griffin stroked the dog behind his ears and spoke quietly. “Ready, boy? Time to go to work.”

He headed out of the enclosure, the big dog trotting softly behind. He relocked the gate, and they moved swiftly toward the lodge. He watched everywhere. The three-man outside security team should be no problem, since they knew him. Still, he would rather not take the chance. At a side door of the lodge, he breathed deeply and gazed around one more time. Then he opened the door, and he and the Doberman entered. The house was eerily quiet, a massive wood coffin. Almost everyone had left for the celebration at Blanchard headquarters in Long Lake village, with the exception of a few technicians in the big lab on the second floor. Tremont would not stash a prisoner on the lab floor.

The rest of the lodge should be empty, except for Marty and perhaps an armed guard to watch him. He bent to the Doberman. “Sweep the area, boy.”

The Doberman vanished among the corridors, as silent as fog rolling across a moor. Griffin waited, listening to the relaxed chatter of two of the security men who had paused outside a window as they made their individual rounds.

Two minutes passed, and then the Doberman was back, circling and eager to lead Griffin to what he had found. Griffin followed the pacing animal along a hallway lined with doors to guest rooms that had once been the retreats of the nineteenth-century wealthy, who had played here at returning to nature. But the dog stopped at none. Instead, he continued on past the gleaming kitchen, strangely silent and empty because the cooks and scullery staff had been given the afternoon off to attend the festivities in Long Lake village.

At last the dog stopped before a closed door. Griffin tried the knob. It was locked.

His skin prickled with nerves. The enormous empty house was enough to make anyone edgy, but now Griffin was about to open a door he had never seen beyond. Glancing right and left, he drew a small case from his jacket pocket and extracted a set of narrow picklocks. He worked skillfully through three of them. Finally the fourth opened the lock with a quiet click.

Griffin pulled out his pistol and turned the knob. The door swung open silently, its hinges well oiled. Inside was a faint smell of mold. He felt around the wall until he found a light switch. He flicked it on, and an overhead lamp illuminated stairs that disappeared down into a cellar. Griffin gave a hand signal and closed the door. The Doberman raced down to continue its mission, nails tapping on the wood stairs.

As Griffin waited, he stared uneasily down into the darkness. The dog was back in seconds, indicating for Griffin to follow.

Griffin found another light switch midway down. This turned on a series of overhead lights that illuminated a large cellar with open storage rooms filled with cardboard banker's boxes. Each box was neatly labeled with the names of files, sources, dates ― the history of a scientist and businessman. But the dog's interest was at the only closed door. He circled warily in front of it.

His gun ready, Griffin pressed his ear against the door. When he heard nothing, he looked down at the dog. “A mystery, eh, boy?”

The dog lifted his muzzle as if in agreement. Right now the animal was merely watchful and alert, but if Griffin should need him, he would instantly turn into a killer.

Using his tools again, Griffin unlocked the door, but he did not open it. The basement area seemed like a sepulchre. It increased his disquiet. His veins rushed with an urgency that he act, but prudence had taught him long ago to never expect the expected. He did not know what waited on the other side of the door ― whether it was an armed squad, a madman, or simply nothing. Whatever it was, he would damn well be prepared.

Again he listened. Finally he put the picklocks away, gripped his weapon firmly, and pressed open the door.

The room was a dark, shadowy cell with no windows. A rectangle of light spilled in from the hallway. Ahead, a mounded figure lay on the only piece of furniture ― a narrow cot shoved against the far wall. There was an open pot on the floor, and the unpleasant odor of urine rose from it. The whole place gave off an air of danger and sadness. Griffin quickly signaled the Doberman to guard the doorway and sped softly to the bed. A small, rotund man was sleeping under a wool blanket.

He whispered, “Zellerbach?”

Marty opened his eyes. “What? Who?” His speech was slow; his movements stiff.

“Are you all right? Are you injured?” Griffin supported his shoulders until Marty was sitting upright. For a moment, he thought Marty had been hurt and then that he was disoriented by sleep. But as the fellow shook his head and rubbed his eyes, Griffin remembered the Marty Zellerbach he had known in high school. He was Jon's other close friend ― the crazy, supercilious bastard who was always getting Jon into fights and arguments. Not crazy or arrogant, they found out later, but sick. Some kind of autism.

He swore silently. Could the guy tell him what he needed to know?

He tried, “Bill Griffin, Marty. Remember me?”

Marty stiffened in the shadows. The cot creaked. “Griffin? Where have you been? I've been searching for you everywhere. Jon wants to speak to you.”

“And I want to speak with him. How long have you been here?”

“I don't know. It seems like a long time.”

“What did you tell them?”

“Tell?” Marty remembered all the questions. The blow to his head and the blackness. “It was terrible. Those men are deviants. They enjoy other people's pain. I was… unconscious.” His heart thundered as he thought back to the wretched experience. It seemed to have happened only minutes before, as fresh in his mind as an open wound. But the events were muddy, too. Confused. He shook his head, trying to clear it. He knew a lot of the problem was he had been on his meds. “I don't think I told them anything.”

Griffin nodded. “I don't think you did either.” If he had, they would have captured or killed Jon by now. But then, the Russell woman could have killed Jon already, too. “I'm going to get you out of here, Marty. Then you can take me to Jon.”

Marty's round face was anguished as he admitted, “I'm not sure where he is.”

Griffin swore. “Wait. Okay, think. Where could he be? You must've arranged somewhere to meet. You're some kind of genius. Geniuses always think of things like that.”

Marty was suddenly suspicious. “How did you find me?” He had never liked Bill Griffin. Bill had been a loudmouth and know-it-all back when they had been in school together, even though ― at least in Marty's opinion ― Bill was really just above average. Plus, Bill had vied with Marty for Jon's attention. Marty cringed back against the wall. “You could be one of them!”

“I am one of them. By now, Jon knows it, too. But he's in a lot more danger than he thinks, and I don't want him killed. I've got to help him.”

Marty wanted to help Jon, too, which made him want to trust Griffin. But could he? How could he be sure?

Griffin studied Marty. “Look, I'm going to get you out of here safely. Will you believe me then and tell me where you were supposed to meet Jon? We'll go there together.”

Marty cocked his head. His gaze grew sharp and analytical. “All right.” It was a simple matter, he told himself. If he decided he did not trust Griffin, he would simply lie.

“Good. Come on.”

“Can't. They chained me to the wall.” Forlornly, Marty held up his hands and shook his right leg. Thin, strong chains were attached to brackets on the wall. Each was secured by a powerful padlock.

“I should've suspected something like this when they didn't leave someone behind to guard you.”

“It's been unpleasant,” Marty admitted.

“I'll bet.” He got out his picklocks once more and quickly opened the padlocks.

As Marty rubbed his wrists and ankles, Griffin whistled low for the Doberman.

The dog padded toward them, his back nose high and sniffing.

“Friend,” Griffin said to the dog and touched Marty. “Good. Protect.”

With amazing patience, the usually nervous Marty swung his legs off the cot and sat quietly as the powerful Doberman smelled his clothes, his hands, and his feet.

As the big animal stepped back, Marty asked, “Does he have a name?”

“Samson.”

“Suits him,” Marty decided. “A big bruiser of a dog.”

“That he is.” Griffin ordered, “Scout.”

Samson trotted out into the corridor, looked both ways, and angled off toward the stairs.

“Come on,” Griffin said.

Griffin helped Marty until he was out of the room, and then Marty shook him off. With Griffin in the lead and Marty half-running in his usual rolling gate, they moved quickly up the stairs and through the deserted corridors to the rear door where Griffin had parked his car. Marty's brain was working at full speed now, and his emotions were ratcheted to a fine pitch. He had mixed emotions about Bill Griffin, but at least Griffin had gotten him out of that disgusting dungeon.

As Griffin paused at the door, Marty grabbed his arm and whispered, “Look. A moving shadow.” He pointed out the small side window.

The Doberman's head was up, alert, his ears rotating as he listened. Griffin gave a hand signal that told the Doberman to stay. At the same time, he pulled Marty down. They hunched together on the floor.

Griffin spoke in a husky whisper. “It's just one of the security guards. He was clocking in at a key station. He'll be gone in three minutes. Okay?”

“You don't have to ask my permission, if that's what you mean,” Marty said tartly. He was definitely feeling better.

Griffin raised his eyebrows. He pulled himself up and looked out the window. He nodded to Marty. “Let's go.” As soon as Marty was on his feet, Griffin pushed him outside. The Doberman ran ahead toward the red Jeep Cherokee. Bill pulled open the door, and Samson leaped in. Marty clambered aboard while Griffin slid behind the steering wheel.

As Griffin turned on the motor, he ordered, “Get down on the floor.”

Marty had been through enough emergencies in the past week that he no longer objected when someone who understood the unfathomable world of violence told him what to do. He crouched on the floor in the back. Samson sat above him on the seat. Marty reached out a tentative hand. When the muscular dog dipped his head and slid his nose under it, Marty smiled and patted the warm muzzle.

“Nice doggie,” he cooed.

Griffin drove swiftly away, breathing deeply with relief. Another security guard waved as he sped out of the compound, and he waved back. It had been less than twenty minutes since he had returned, and he felt confident no one would remember his earlier departure. Now he concentrated on one goal: reaching Jon before Randi Russell could kill him.

“Okay, we're out. Now where do we go?”

“Syracuse. I'll tell the rest when we get there.”

Griffin nodded. “We'll have to fly. Rent a car there.”

But in his haste and relief, he had forgotten about the vital third guard, who had been hidden in a stand of poplars. As the guard watched the Cherokee disappear down the road, he spoke quietly into a cellphone. “Mr. Tremont? He's taken the bait. He's busted that Zellerbach guy out, and they're driving out of here. Yes, sir. We planted the tracking device, we've got the airport covered, and Chet's waiting at the country road.”

CHAPTER FORTY TWO

“Dammit all!” Peter Howell's wiry frame was bent over his computer as he stared in frustration at the glowing monitor. “There's precious little in Blanchard company's files about the veterinarian serum or the monkey virus. What there is looks bloody completely on the up-and-up.” As the wind blew through the RV's broken windows, he ran his gnarled brown hand through his gray hair in disgust.

“Nothing about tests on humans?” Smith was sitting on the sofa nearby, his arms crossed over his chest, his legs extended. He had been dozing as Peter had searched for information. The Beretta was tucked into his belt, easily reachable.

“Or Iraq?” Beside him, Randi stretched. She had been sleeping, too, until Peter's loud curse had jerked her awake. Suddenly she was aware of Jon and how closely they were sitting together. She adjusted her weight, tactfully putting more space between them. Her Uzi was beneath the sofa, just behind her heels. When she tapped back, she could feel its comforting hardness.

“Not a syllable,” Peter growled as he continued to stare intently at the screen. “I suppose it's possible we're on the wrong track ― that Blanchard's clean as a boatswain's whistle and they don't have the virus. That their serum is simply what it looks like ― a fortuitous coincidence.”

“Oh, please.” Randi shook her head in disbelief.

“That doesn't explain the initial twelve human test subjects,” Jon said. “Whoever set that experiment in motion ten years ago had the virus then and the serum last year to cure the Iraqis and then, last week, the three Americans.”

They considered some other explanation for the experiment.

“There must be another set of records.” Peter rotated in his chair. He gave them a baleful look and scratched his leathery cheek.

“Unless they just didn't keep written records,” Randi suggested.

“Impossible,” Smith disagreed. “Research scientists have to keep notes, results, speculations, every piece of paper, each bit of an idea, or they can't move forward in their work. Besides, their supervisors have to monitor progress, set goals, and go after funding, and their bookkeepers have to keep accurate financial accountings.”

“But scientists don't have to put everything on a computer,” Randi said. “They could do it by hand, too.”

Jon shook his head. “Not today. Computers have become a research tool in themselves. For projections, for simulated reactions, for statistical analysis… everything would take years otherwise. No, there have to be real records on a computer somewhere.”

“I'm convinced,” Peter agreed, “but where, eh?”

“We need Marty.” It was Smith's turn to swear. His navy blue eyes were dark with frustration.

Randi said reasonably, “We can try other ways. Let's drive to Blanchard, break in, and search their files on site. If there's anyone around, we'll `convince' them to talk nicely with us, too.”

“Great,” Jon began, “I'm sure we haven't broken every law yet. There must be some we've missed.”

Suddenly there was frantic knocking on the RV door. The vehicle shuddered with it.

“Must be getting old.” Peter snapped up his H&K MP5. “Missed hearing anyone approach.”

Instantly Randi and Jon became a blur of movement as they pulled out their weapons.

“Jon!” The voice outside was thin, familiar, and commanding. “Jon! Open the darn door. It's me.”

“Marty!” Smith jumped to the entryway and cracked open the door.

For the moment, Marty's round, chubby body was athletic. He pushed the door back, leaped inside, and grabbed Jon by both arms. “Jon! At last.” He hugged him and stepped quickly back, embarrassed. “I was beginning to think I'd never see you again. Where in heaven's name have you been? Are you uninjured? Bill rescued me, so I decided it was safe to bring him to you. Is that okay?”

“Trap,” Peter barked. He swung the MP5 around so it pointed at Griffin, who had stepped quietly inside.

The ex-FBI man stood alone with his back against the closed door in his windbreaker and trousers, his arms hanging loosely from his broad shoulders. His hands were empty, but his stocky body was rigid and alert. His long brown hair was greasy, as if he had not washed it in days, and his brown eyes had an empty look that chilled Jon.

Randi instantly backed Peter with her Uzi.

“No!” Smith yelled, stepping in front of Griffin. “Hold it, both of you. Marty's right. This is Bill Griffin. Put down the guns.” He swung around to face Griffin. “You alone?”

“We're alone,” Marty assured them. “Bill says he has to warn you, Jon. You're in bigger danger than ever.”

“What danger?”

Randi and Peter, still watchful, had slowly lowered their weapons.

The moment their weapons were down, Bill Griffin dipped his hand inside his jacket pocket and pulled out a 9mm Glock.

“Her.” Griffin pointed the deadly instrument at Randi's heart, his hollow eyes focused on her. “She's CIA. Sent by General Nelson Caspar to assassinate you, Jon.”

“What?” Randi's pale brows arched in outrage. Her blond head whipsawed from Griffin to Smith. “That's a lie!” Then she glared at Griffin. “How dare you? You're working for them, but you come in here and accuse me?”

Jon held up his hand. “Why would the exec of the chairman of the Joint Chiefs want me killed?”

“Because he's working for the same people I am.”

“Tremont and Blanchard Pharmaceuticals?”

Bill nodded. “It's what I was warning you about back in Rock Creek park.”

Jon stared at him. “But you didn't warn anyone else.” His highplaned face radiated rage. “So they killed Sophia.”

“That's the world we live in,” Griffin said bitterly. “There are no good guys. No one believes in right and wrong anymore. It's get what you can for yourself. So now I'm going to get mine. I'm owed that much.”

Jon looked away, forcing himself to remain composed. Sophia was dead. He couldn't bring her back. He would always carry the pain, but maybe he could learn to live with it better. He made his voice quiet. “No one's owed anything, Bill. And you're wrong about Randi. She couldn't have been sent to kill me. Impossible, considering the circumstances of how we met. In fact, she saved my life.” He shot her a smile and was surprised to see her Ice Queen face soften. “She wants to stop what Tremont is doing as much as I. Who told you Caspar sent her to kill me?”

As Bill Griffin listened to Jon, he had a strange feeling. Almost as if he had missed some important piece in the puzzle of life. He was not sure exactly what it was, only that for a few lucid moments he recognized the loss and that he had never been able to find the directions that would lead him back to what was gone. So now as he studied Jon, saw him shudder for control as he was reminded again of Sophia's death, he felt loneliness and regret. Perhaps he had been too hasty in taking care of himself. Maybe he should have warned Sophia. He could have warned others, too ―

And then he stopped himself. How far could he go? Certainly he was not prepared to save the world. But maybe this one last time he could do something for Jon to make up for what had happened to his fiancée.

So he told him, “Victor Tremont is behind everything. His numberone gun is Nadal al-Hassan. They―” But as he said the names, a warning bell rang loudly inside his head. He thought about Tremont's lodge and how empty ― and safe ― it had been when he had broken in to find Marty. How conveniently they had escaped.

How easily he had passed the sentries.

His gaze moved quickly to Marty. “Did Tremont or any of the others give you something to carry?” he growled. “Think! Any buttons, coins, pens, maybe a comb?”

Jon turned on Griffin. “You're thinking ―?”

Bill ordered Marty, “Search your pockets. Maybe they slipped you something without your even knowing it. It could've been any of them. Maybe Maddux?”

At first Marty had not realized what they were asking, and then it became clear. “You're worried they bugged me!” Instantly he turned his pockets inside-out onto the coffee table in the living room. “I don't remember anything, but I was unconscious after the pockmarked man hit me.”

His plump hands, which were so naturally agile on a keyboard and clumsy almost everywhere else, worked with speed. The former FBI agent watched with an itching urgency that made him want to rip every piece of clothing off Marty so he could make certain he was clean.

Instead, he ordered, “Take off your belt, Marty. Quick.”

Jon added, “Your shoes, too.”

As Marty stripped off his belt and threw it at Jon to examine, fury rose in a red tide from Bill Griffin's throat to his neutral face. “They told me a lie they knew I'd have to try to warn you about, Jon. Then they let me break Marty out, so he'd take me to you because they didn't learn anything from him. Two birds with one stone. They must've suspected me since Rock Creek park. I should've―”

The sharp bark of a dog carried from outside the RV. A single bark and no more.

Bill froze. His face went slack. "They're outside. Al-Hassan and his men.

“How do you know?” Randi slid along the wall to the, corner of a front window with its glass still intact. She peered carefully around.

“The dog,” Jon realized. “The Doberman you had in the park.”

Bill nodded. “Samson. He's trained for attack, scouting, sentry duty, you name it.”

“I see them,” Randi whispered. “Looks like four. They're hiding among the row of RVs in front of us. One's a tall Arab.”

“Al-Hassan,” Bill said. His voice was deathly quiet.

Peter made a clucking sound with his tongue against the roof of his mouth. He murmured, “Here's how they got to us.” He held up a tiny tracking transmitter he had taken from the hollowed-out heel of Marty's shoe. “Darling little bug, isn't it?” He shook his head with disgust, flung the device out the back window, and snapped up his submachine gun.

Randi was still on watch at the window. “I don't see any police or military.”

“What does it matter?” Bill said harshly. “I led them here, and they've got you. Stupid. I was stupid!”

“Hardly,” the Englishman said calmly. “It's going to take a lot more bloody work than they've put out to get us.” He reached for the light fixture on the wall over the kitchen table, pressed a button on its side, and there was a popping sound as four vinyl squares, indistinguishable from the others covering the floor, lifted up in the middle of the living room. His wiry frame moved lightning-fast across the floor to the exit. “Never leave a single way out, friends. Jon, would you do the honors?”

Jon raised the trapdoor and dropped through.

“You next, my boy,” the Englishman told Marty.

Marty nodded glumly, peered down at the asphalt, and let his feet fall through. The big Doberman was lying quietly under the RV, his large dark eyes scanning the open area and the woods behind where the RV was parked. In the deep shadow beneath the vehicle, Marty crawled quickly out of the way as Randi Russell, Bill Griffin, and Peter Howell landed, one after the other. The watchful Doberman raised his nose at Marty, and Marty slid closer. As Samson resumed his sentry duty, Marty crouched next to him and ran his hand over the handsome animal's sleek back. Strangely, he felt no fear. Then he raised his gaze to look around at the wheels of other RVs and the thick tree trunks of the forest. He saw no feet, and for a wild moment he had the hope that maybe al-Hassan and his killers had given up and gone home.

Bill Griffin called the dog and spoke softly. “Friends, Samson. Friends.”

He had the dog smell each of them.

Then, with Jon in the lead, they crawled to the end of the RV that was closest to the woods. There were only about fifteen feet between them and safety.

“That's it.” Peter nodded toward the trees. “We can hide there and figure out what to do next. When I say `go,' jump up and run as if the hounds of hell are on your tails. I'll cover you.” He patted his H&K.

But then shapes moved out from the forest line.

“Flatten!” Smith growled and dropped onto his face.

As the four others fell, a fusillade swept across the open area, whining and ricocheting off the side of the RV. They scrambled back, searching for cover behind the tires.

Bill Griffin raised his voice. “How many?”

“Two.” The Englishman's eyes were narrow slits as he searched the woods. “Or three,” Jon countered, breathing hard.

“Two or three,” Randi echoed, “which means one or two are still in front.”

“Yeah.” Bill Griffin looked around at their tension and fear and at the brave lights in their eyes. It was true even of Marty with his odd condition and even odder mind. Marty was not the same prissy, whiny nuisance he remembered. Marty had grown up. As he thought that, he felt a terrible tear rip through something old and painful inside. At the same time, he felt a shift. Maybe it was the sourness from all the years of working for men with pinched minds. Or perhaps it was simply that he had never fit into this world which made so much sense to others. But probably the truth was he did not care a damn about anything or anyone anymore, not even himself.

He desperately wanted to care again. Now he saw it ― why he had risked so much to save Jon. By doing that, he had had a hope of saving something good within himself. Thinking that, his blood seemed to course more vigorously. His mind grew incredibly clear. A sense of purpose swept through him as strong as he remembered from the old days when he and Jon were young and the future lay ahead.

He knew what to do.

Knew with every fiber in his body. With all his disappointment.

Exactly what he must do to retrieve himself.

Without warning, he crawled quickly out from under the RV, surged to his feet, and with a sharp guttural sound charged straight toward where the attackers crouched at the edge of the woods. The Doberman followed.

“Bill!” Jon shouted. “Don't―”

But it was too late. The stocky man's legs pumped and his long hair flew behind as he pounded toward the trees, firing his Glock. He was excited and immensely relieved, and he did not give a damn anymore about anything but redeeming himself. With bared fangs, the Doberman sprang toward one of the attackers on Bill's left.

Jon, Randi, and Peter leaped out with their weapons to follow. It was over in seconds.

By the time Jon reached him, Bill Griffin lay on his back on dry weeds at the edge of the woods. Blood bubbled up from his chest.

“Jesus,” Peter breathed as his canny gaze swept the trees and RVs, looking for more trouble.

Ten feet away the short, heavy man who had led the attack on Jon in Georgetown that first day was crumpled in a lifeless heap. A second man lay dead of a gunshot to his head. A third man had sprawled back, his throat torn open, while the Doberman paced the woods in search of others.

“No sign of the man Bill called al-Hassan,” Peter noted quickly. “He could still be out front.”

“If he's alone, he probably won't try anything by himself,” Randi agreed, her Uzi ready. Her voice softened and she looked down. “How is he, Jon?”

“Help me.”

As Peter stood watch, his H&K fanning all around, Randi helped Jon carry Griffin into the shelter of the trees, where they laid him on a bed of dry leaves.

“Hold on, Bill.” His throat tight, Jon crouched down. He tried to smile at his old friend.

Peter backed up to join them in the forest, holding his position as sentry.

Jon's voice was gentle. “Bill, you damn fool. What were you thinking? We could've handled them.”

“You… don't know that for sure.” He tugged Jon down by the collar. “This time… you could've got yourself killed. Al-Hassan is out there… somewhere. Waiting for reinforcements. Leave… get out of here!”

His grip was strong, but then pink foam appeared on his lips.

“Take it easy, Bill. I'm just going to take a look at your wounds. We'll be fine―”

“Bullshit.” Griffin gave a weak smile. “Go to the lodge… Lake Magua. Horrible… horrible―” His eyes closed, and he breathed shallowly.

“Don't talk,” Jon said anxiously as he ripped open Bill's shirt.

His eyes opened. “No time… Sorry about Sophia… Sorry for everything.” His eyes widened as if seeing into a vast darkness.

“Bill? Bill! Don't do this!”

His neck went limp, and his head dropped back. In death, the bland face seemed suddenly younger, somehow more innocent. The features that had so easily fit into so many different roles smoothed out to show a strong bone structure with definite cheekbones and chin. As Jon looked numbly down, somewhere a bird began to sing. Insects hummed. The sunlight through the trees was warm.

Smith went into action. He felt the carotid artery. Nothing. Frantically, he put his hand on the bloody chest. But there was not even a whisper of a beat. He sat back, crouching next to his friend. Pain swept through him. First Sophia and now Bill.

Suddenly the Doberman appeared. He stood over Bill, guarding him. He nudged Bill's head and made what sounded like a low moan in his throat. Marty murmured something and stroked the Doberman's back.

Smith closed Bill's eyes and looked up. “He's gone.”

“We've got to leave, Jon.” Peter's voice was kind but definite. He handed him a colored kerchief from one of the webbed belt pouches on his commando uniform.

As Jon wiped blood from his hand, Randi said, “I'm sorry, Jon. I know he was your friend. But more of them will be here soon.”

When Smith did not get up immediately, Marty said, “Jon!” His voice was sharp. “Let's go. You're scaring me!”

Smith stood and gazed around at the battered RV and the dead bodies. He breathed deeply, controlling his grief and rage. He glanced once more at Bill Griffin.

Victor Tremont had a lot to answer for.

He moved into the woods. “We'll work our way back to the car through here.”

“Good idea.” Randi took the lead.

“Come on, Samson,” Marty called.

The dog lifted his head. Then he nudged his dead master's shoulder. He made a low sound in his throat again and prodded Bill one last time.

When there was no response, he gave a final look around as if saying good-bye. He trotted silently into the woods, following.

Randi's long body angled left. With sure footsteps, she forged a path through the underbrush and around the trees. Jon and Marty came behind with Peter and the Doberman bringing up the rear. Peter's H&K swept from side to side.

Jon looked at Marty. “You know anything about this `lodge' Bill was talking about? Lake Magua?”

“It's where they chained me in a room.”

“You know where it is?”

“Of course.”

Suddenly Peter's voice sounded over their conversation. “Bogies at six o'clock. They're coming after us. I'll keep them busy. Go!”

“Not without you!” Smith refused.

“Don't be stupid. You've got Tremont to finish off. I can take care of myself.”

At the sounds of feet approaching through the trees, the big Doberman stopped its loping trot and spun back to join Peter. He spoke low to the dog, then looked back at Smith.

“Go on. Now! Samson and I will cover your tails and buy you time. Hurry!” He gazed down at the dog. “You understand hand signals, boy?” He lowered his hand to his side and made a swift motion. Instantly the dog raced off into the woods to scout. Peter nodded, satisfied. “See, I won't be alone.”

“He's right,” Randi agreed. “It's what Bill would've wanted.”

Jon was frozen for a second. His high-planed face with the dark blue eyes looked ominous in the shadowy forest. His long, muscular body was tensed, ready to spring. Bill had just died, and now Peter was volunteering to stay behind where his risk of being killed, too, was enormous. Jon had devoted himself to saving lives, not taking them. And now, because of circumstances, he was caught in what seemed a hopeless loop of death.

He studied Peter's wrinkled, weathered face and the sharp eyes that had one message: Go. Leave me alone. This is what I do.

Smith nodded. “Okay. Marty, you follow me. Good luck, Peter.”

“Right.” Already the Englishman had turned, his gaze searching the forest behind as if his whole life were focused on this moment.

Jon stared a second longer. Then he, Marty, and Randi sped away through the timber. Behind them a long burst of gunfire sounded, followed by a cry of pain.

“Peter?” Marty's voice rose with worry. “Do you think he's hurt? Maybe we should go back?”

“It was his H&K's fire,” Jon assured him, although he was not sure.

Marty nodded uncertainly, remembering the endless days of too-close contact in the RV and Peter's tart humor and irritating habits. “I hope you're right. I… I've grown to like Peter.”

Grimly they continued on. The woods were quiet now, shocked as sporadic gunfire sounded. Each shot seemed to pierce Smith to the quick. Then there was silence. That was worse. Peter could be lying in his own blood somewhere, dying.

At last they emerged on a quiet residential street that paralleled Route 5. Grave and wary, they hid their weapons inside their clothes, trotted right, and turned onto the street where Jon and Randi had parked their rented car under the maple tree.

They split up and approached the car cautiously.

But no one was around, and no one tried to stop them. Marty heaved a sigh and climbed into the backseat. Jon slid into the driver's seat, Randi jumped into the front passenger seat, the mini-Uzi on her lap, and they headed for the Thruway. An hour later they arrived at the Oriskany-Utica airport, where they rented a light plane and flew into the vast wilderness of Adirondack State Park.

CHAPTER FORTY THREE

Victor Tremont's timbered lodge loomed enormous through the trees below. Here at the back of it, a narrow brick drive led from an oversize timbered garage deep among the trees. Three heavily armed men patrolled. On the far side of the lodge a pristine lake was nestled in the forest of pine and hardwood trees. Large white clouds hovered above, and the long light of the late-afternoon sun cast dark shadows across the wooded slopes.

Taking it all in from a rise in the forest behind the lodge were Jon, Randi, and Marty. They lay on their stomachs on the thick carpet of duff under dense pines as they carefully analyzed the lodge's layout and the bored actions of the trio of guards.

“I hope Peter is all right,” Marty worried quietly as he peered ahead, not sure exactly what he was supposed to be looking for.

“He knows what he's doing, Mart,” Smith answered as he recorded the sentries' routes.

Then Jon peered over at Randi, seeing her face intent on the scene below. She was stretched out on his other side and had been quietly listening.

She gave him a sympathetic smile.

With that troubled exchange, the three turned their full attention back to planning how to break into Tremont's mountain castle. One of the bored and yawning guards circled the log-and-frame building every half hour, checking doors and cursorily sweeping the grounds with a gaze that would have seen nothing that was not immediately obvious. The second man sat relaxed in a chair, smoking and enjoying the late October sunlight, his old M-16A1 assault rifle across his lap. The third was comfortably ensconced in a civilian Humvee beside the small clearing for a helipad fifty yards to their right, his rifle jutting up beside him.

“They haven't had any intruders for years,” Jon guessed. “If ever.”

“Maybe there isn't anything to guard,” Randi said. “Griffin could've been lying to us. Or just mistaken.”

“No. He saved us, and he knew he was dying,” Smith insisted. “He wouldn't lie.”

“It's happened, Jon. You yourself said he'd gone wrong.”

“Not that wrong.” He turned to Marty. “When they had you locked up here, Mart, what do you remember of the layout inside?”

“A big living room and a lot of small rooms. A sun room and kitchen. Places like that. They questioned me in a room downstairs. It was empty except for a chair and a cot, and when I woke up I was in a basement storage room chained to a wall.”

“That's all you can tell us?” Randi asked.

“I didn't exactly get a vacation brochure of the place,” he said huffily. Then he grimaced. “All right. I'm sorry. I know you didn't mean anything. Well, I did see some people in white coats, like doctors. Most wore white pants, too. They were going upstairs to the second floor, but I don't know to where exactly.”

“A laboratory?” Randi wondered.

“A secret lab.” Jon's voice was low but charged. “That's it ― one of the things Bill could've told us. A secret lab for research and development. The records of the experiment on the twelve victims from the Gulf War and whatever else they've been doing should be here. That's probably why nothing showed up on the Blanchard company computer. They never put anything there.”

“Some other company name and password, maybe,” Randi theorized.

Jon said, "We'd better get in there and find out for sure. Marty, stay here. You'll be safer. If you see or hear anyone, fire a single shot to warn us.

“You can count on it.” Marty hesitated, his round eyes widening with shock. “I can't believe I said that. Especially that I said it enthusiastically.” He was gripping the Enfield bullpup in his plump hands with nervous distaste. He had taken a new dose of meds and was still calm, but the effect would wear off soon.

Jon and Randi decided to delay until the guard completed his next circuit and rejoined the one at the front for a relaxed smoke. Then they would take out the one in the Humvee in the clearing to the right, where the afternoon sun sent long, cool shadows through the tall trees.

They did not have long to wait. After a few minutes, one of the two at the front stood and vanished behind the lodge. Ten minutes later he reappeared, this time coming around the building's far side. He gave a cursory scan of the forest and grounds, logged in at the key station next to the main rear entrance, and finally circled back to the front to rejoin his companion.

Only the guard in the Humvee remained on this side of the big lodge.

“Now,” Jon said.

They slipped through the pines to the clearing. Out of sight of his colleagues, the guard in the Humvee was dozing in the warm sunshine, slumped in the driver's seat.

“You want to work around behind the Humvee, Randi?” Jon suggested. He could feel his pulse begin to pound behind his ears. “I'll watch from here and cover you. When you get there, give me a signal, and I'll distract him from this side. If he wakes up too soon and hears you, I'll take him out.”

“I'll wave a hankie.” She gave a short smile. “Well, a Kleenex.” She was relieved to be in action again.

Her heart pumping, she melted among the trees until she was out of Smith's view. He crouched in the shadows just inside the forest. Beretta ready, he watched the dozing guard and waited. Five minutes passed. Then he saw a flash of white directly behind the parked Humvee. The guard stirred, moved in his seat, but did not open his eyes. As the man settled in once more, Jon loped straight toward the squat, open vehicle.

But just as Jon was halfway across the clearing, the guard's eyes snapped open. He grabbed his M-16. Randi materialized behind him. Her pale hair was a wreath of sunlight around her head, and her beautiful face was stony with concentration. Her body moved with the fluidity of a feral cat as she sprinted silently to the topless Humvee, ran up over the back, balanced one foot on the top of the backseat and the other on the rollover rail, and pressed her Uzi down into the back of the guard's head. It took Jon's breath away. He had never seen a woman move like that.

Her voice was cold and clear. “Release the rifle.”

The guard hesitated a second as if calculating his chances, then slowly lay the rifle on the seat beside him. He placed his hands flat on his thighs in plain sight, like someone who knew the proper procedure for being arrested.

“Good decision.”

Jon reached the Humvee and removed the M-16. He and Randi marched the guard back to where Marty waited. The three worked quickly together. Marty ripped the man's shirt into strips. Jon and Randi used the guard's belt and the strips of cloth to gag and tie him hand and foot. Trussed up, unable to speak, he lay on a bed of pine needles, shooting angry looks.

Smith took the guard's ring of keys. “The two others out front won't expect us from inside the lodge.”

“I like that.” Randi nodded, approving the plan.

He looked at her a little longer than necessary, but she did not seem to notice.

Marty sighed. “I know what you're going to tell me. `If you see anything, shoot.' Gad. And to think two weeks ago I'd never even held a gun. I'm devolving.”

They left Marty shaking his head as he guarded the disabled sentry and trotted down the slope to a side rear entrance of the lodge. The scent of pine was aromatic but somehow cloying.

As Randi stood guard, Jon found the right key and unlocked the door. They stepped warily inside a small foyer where sunlight beamed down from clerestory windows and more shone ahead at the far end of a hall. Closed doors lined the hallway, and there was the faint odor of good cigars as they padded toward the second source of light.

“What's that?” Randi stopped, her athletic shoes motionless on the parquet floor.

Smith shook his head. “I didn't hear anything.”

She was frozen there, her even features pursed in concentration. “It's gone. Whatever the sound was, I can't hear it now.”

“We'd better try all the doors.”

She took one side, and he the other. They turned every knob.

“Locked.” Jon shook his head. “They look as if they might be guest rooms or offices.”

“We'd better leave them until later,” Randi decided.

They passed a staircase that rose to a landing and turned. They could see nothing above the landing. They continued on, listening. The odor of cigars increased. Edgy, Jon's gaze swept everywhere. At last they stood at the timbered entry to a cavernous living room decorated with rustic wood-and-leather furniture, brass-and-wood lamps, and low wood tables. It had to be the big room Marty had described. Across it extended a wall of windows through which sunlight flooded. There was also an enormous stone fireplace in which coals glowed, warming the room against the October chill. The expanse of windows looked out to the lake through the dense trees, and in the middle of the wall were double front doors that opened out to a covered porch.

Without speaking, the silent pair slipped together across the room, stood beside the doors, and surveyed the porch. Beyond the porch, on the lawn off to the left, were the two remaining guards relaxing in Adirondack chairs, smoking and chatting, their rifles across their knees. They were gazing out at the valley where the colors of autumn had turned the sweep of hardwood trees to rich golds and reds among the green pines.

She was watching the sentries. “They're perfect targets,” she murmured.

“Lazy idiots. They think because Tremont is gone they can do what they want.”

“If it comes to shooting,” Randi whispered, “I'll take the one on the right, you take the one on the left. With luck, they'll surrender.”

“That's what we want.” Smith nodded in agreement. He was getting used to working with her. In fact, he was enjoying it. Now, if they could just do it well enough to survive… “Let's go.”

They eased the doors open and padded out onto the porch as the two men talked and smoked in their chairs. The sun was hard and flinty as Jon's gaze locked onto the guards sitting directly below, unknowing.

The taller guard flicked his cigarette onto the grassy lawn and stood. “Time to do another turn around the property.” Before Jon or Randi could move, he saw them. “Bob!” he called in alarm.

“Lay down your weapons,” Jon commanded.

Randi's voice was tense. “Do it slowly. So no one makes any mistakes.”

Both men froze. One was completely on his feet but only half-turned to face them, while the other was merely halfway out of his chair. Neither's weapon was pointed at Jon and Randi, while Jon and Randi had the guards completely covered. It was a surprise ambush that had worked, and there was no doubt in anyone's minds that unless the sentries wanted to commit suicide, they would do exactly as told.

“Shit,” one muttered.

The timbered grounds were quiet as Smith locked the three tied-up sentries in an outbuilding behind the garage. Marty stood in the shadows next to it, while Randi was out of sight, monitoring the lodge for any activity. Marty's round face was worried, and his green eyes had a dark look, as if he were in a world he had never wanted to know anything about. His plump body seemed desolate in his baggy pants and jacket.

He looked up at Jon. “You want me to stay here?” he asked, as if he knew the answer.

“It's safer, Mart, and we need someone to be sentry. I don't know what we're going to find in the lab. If something happens to us, you've got a chance to make it by escaping into the woods.”

Marty nodded soberly. His fingers twitched on the bullpup as if he longed for a keyboard instead. “It's okay, Jon. I know you'll be back for me. Good luck. And if I see anything” ― he gave a brave smile ― “I'll be sure to fire once.”

Smith clamped a hand on his shoulder in encouragement.

Marty patted Jon's hand. “I'll be okay. Don't worry about me. You'd better go.”

Weapons in hand, Jon and Randi met at the side door of the lodge they had used before. They exchanged a long look, and some kind of recognition passed between them. Jon moved his eyes away, and Randi found herself wondering nervously what was happening to her.

Inside the lodge, they paused at the foot of the staircase in the long hall. There had been no gunshots fired outdoors, and they hoped that whoever was at work upstairs had no idea the sentries had been taken and the lodge invaded. The whole point of this stealthy attack was to accomplish what they needed as quickly and efficiently as possible ― and to emerge alive and intact.

Warily, they padded up the stairs, rounded the landing, and continued on up. As they neared the top, there was still silence.

And then they saw why. A thick glass door with heavy glass panels on either side was set back from a small foyer area. Beyond the glass was a vast, gleaming laboratory with offices and rooms around its perimeter. Off to the side was what looked like a “clean room” devoted to experiments that had to be conducted in an atmosphere free of contaminants. Another room held an electron microscope. All labs had the same sense about them ― orderliness touched with an aura of controlled chaos that came from papers, test tubes, Bunsen burners, glass beakers, flasks, microscopes, file cabinets, computers, refrigerators, and all the other paraphernalia that was so vital to scientists in their pursuit of codifying the unknown. This one also had what looked like a next-century spectrometer.

But what riveted Jon's gaze, what gave him both a sinking sensation and a jolt of triumph, was a heavy door in the center of one wall marked by the glaring red trefoil symbol of a biohazard. It was the door to a Level Four Hot Zone laboratory installation. A secret Level Four.

“I see four people,” Randi whispered.

Jon kept his voice even. “Time to introduce ourselves.”

They pushed in through the door, their weapons in front of them.

CHAPTER FORTY FOUR

Two of the technicians looked up. As soon as they saw the guns, fear shot into their faces. One of them moaned. At the sound, the other two looked up. They blanched. Without saying a word, Jon and Randi had all four's attention.

“Don't shoot!” begged the oldest of the two men.

“Please. I have children!” said the younger of the two women.

“No one's going to be hurt if you just answer a few questions,” Smith assured them.

“He's right.” Randi pointed her Uzi at what looked like a small conference room off the lab. “Let's go in there and have a warm and friendly chat.”

In their white uniforms, the four technicians filed into the room and, when told, took chairs at the Formica-topped conference table. They ranged in age from mid-forties to mid-twenties, and they had the look of people who put in regular days. These were no wild-eyed, pasty-faced scientists who lived in their labs weeks at a time when wrapping up a project. They were ordinary people with wedding rings and photos of extended families on their workbenches. Technicians, not scientists.

Except the older of the two women. She had short gray hair and wore a long white lab coat over street clothes. She had been silent and watchful since they had entered. Some kind of scientist or supervisor.

Sweat bathed the high forehead of the older, balding man. His gaze had been on the guns, but now he looked up at Randi. “What do you want?” His voice was shaky.

“Glad you asked,” she told him. “Tell us about the monkey virus.”

“And the serum that happens to cure a human virus, too,” Jon said.

“We know it was brought from Peru twelve years ago by Victor Tremont.”

“We also know about the experiments on the twelve soldiers in Desert Storm.”

Randi asked, “How long have you had the serum?”

“And how did the epidemic start?”

Hearing the rapid-fire questions, the older woman's gray features pinched. Her faded eyes grew defiant. “We don't know what you mean. We have nothing to do with any monkey virus or serum.”

“Then what do you work on here?” Randi demanded.

“Antibiotics and vitamins mostly,” the supervisor told her.

Smith said, “So why the secrecy? The remoteness? This lab doesn't show up in any of Blanchard's documents.”

“We don't belong to Blanchard.”

“Then whose antibiotics and vitamins are you working on?”

The supervisor flushed, and the others looked terrified again. She had said more than she had wanted to. “I can't tell you that,” she snapped.

Randi said, “Okay. Then we'll look at your files.”

“They're computerized. We don't have access. Only the director and Dr. Tremont do. When they get back, they'll put an end to you and all this―”

Jon's anger was rising. Whether they knew it or not, they had helped murder Sophia. “No one's going to come back anytime soon. They're too busy getting medals, and your three guards are dead outside,” he lied. “You want to join the guards?”

The supervisor glared at him, stubbornly silent.

Randi tried to control her rage. “Maybe you think because we've been polite so far that we won't kill you. You're right, we probably won't. We're the good guys. But,” she added cheerfully, “I have no problem with causing considerable pain. Mistakes do get made. You hear me clearly?”

That got their attention. At least the attention of the other three. They hurriedly nodded.

“Good. Now, which of you is going to tell us the name of the company you work for and the computer passwords?”

“And,” Smith added, staring at the supervisor, “why you need a Level Four lab for vitamins and antibiotics?”

The supervisor's face paled, and her hands trembled, but she intensified her glare of intimidation at the other three.

But the smallest and oldest man ignored her. “Don't try that, Emma.” His voice was weak but determined. “You're not in charge here anymore. They are.” He looked at Jon. “How do we know you won't kill us anyway?”

“You don't. But you can be sure the odds are far better that if anyone's going to be hurt, it's going to be now. Later, we're going to be too busy bringing down Victor Tremont.”

The older man stared. Then he nodded soberly. “I'll tell you.”

Jon looked at Randi. “Now that things are handled here, I'll get Marty.”

She gave a brisk nod. As she held her Uzi on the four lab workers, her mind was on Sophia. She was closing in on Sophia's killer. She was going to make them pay, no matter what she had to do.

“Talk,” she told the older lab technician. “Talk fast.”

Marty was sitting against a tree near the shed, the Enfield bullpup lying across his lap. He was humming to himself. He seemed to be studying sunbeams that danced in a shaft of yellow light through the trees. To look at him where he leaned back, his short legs stretched out on the pine needles, his ankles crossed, he could be an imp from some long-ago fairy tale without a problem in the world. Unless you noticed his eyes. That was where Smith's attention was fixed as he approached silently, cautiously. The green eyes were almost emerald in color and troubled.

“Any problems?”

Marty jumped. “Darn it, Jon. Next time make some noise.” He rubbed his eyes as if they hurt. “I'm happy to report I've seen or heard no one. The shed's been quiet, too. But then there's not a lot any of those three can do, considering how well we tied them. Still, I don't think I'm cut out for guard work. Too boring and too much responsibility of the wrong kind.”

“I see the problem. Feel like some computer sleuthing instead?”

Marty immediately looked more cheerful. “At last. Of course!”

“Let's go into the lodge. I need you to search some of Tremont's files.”

“Ah, Victor Tremont. The one behind it all.” Marty rubbed his hands.

Once inside, they were moving past the row of closed and locked doors when Smith heard a sound. They were almost in the same place in the hall where Randi had thought she had heard something.

He stopped and grabbed Marty's arm. “Don't move. Listen. Are you picking up anything?”

They stayed that way, slowly rotating their heads as if by movement alone they could enhance their hearing.

Jon spun around. “What was that?”

Marty frowned. “I think someone's shouting.”

The sound came again. It was a voice, but muffled and far away. A mans voice.

“It's this one.” Jon pressed his ear to one of the doors. It appeared to be thicker, sturdier than the others, and the lock was a heavy dead-bolt. Someone was shouting but barely audible somewhere on the far side.

“Open it!” Marty said.

“Give me the bullpup.” With the big assault rifle, he shot out the lock.

Screams of terror sounded above their heads from the laboratory, but the door swung open. They entered cautiously. There was a second door almost at once. Smith shot this one open, too, and they found themselves in a large, well-furnished living room. There was a kitchen through an archway, a formal dining room, a wet bar, and a corridor that probably led to bedrooms. The noise, clearly shouting now, was coming from the corridor.

“You stay back and cover me, Mart.”

Marty did not bother to protest. “Okay. I'll do my best.”

As Jon warily entered the corridor, whoever was calling must have heard enough to convince him someone was on the way. Banging started behind the third door.

Jon tried it. Locked. “Who's in there?” he called out.

“Mercer Haldane!” the furious voice bellowed. “Are you the police? Have you captured Victor?”

“Stand back,” Jon called again. He used his Beretta on the simple room lock.

The door blasted open, and a short bantam-rooster of an older man with a mane of unruly white hair, thick white eyebrows, and a clean-shaven but choleric face sat in an armchair in what looked like a master bedroom. He was handcuffed and chained to the wall at the ankle but not gagged.

“Who the devil are you?” the old man demanded.

“Lt. Col. Jonathan Smith, M.D. Someone your people have been trying to murder.”

“Murder? Why, for the love of―” The old man stopped. “Ah, yes, Victor. I knew he was worried about… M.D. you say. Don't tell me: CDC? FDA?”

“USAMRIID.”

“Fort Detrick, of course. So have you caught the bastard?”

“We're trying.”

“You'd better try faster. He's getting that damned medal at five o'clock. Probably the money a minute or so later, and no telling where he'll be by six o'clock. A long way from here, if I know him.”

“Then you'd better help us.”

“Just ask.”

“You think he created the virus epidemic?”

“Of course he did. Are you a numbskull? That's why he locked me in here. What I don't know is how he did it.”

Jon nodded. “Figures. Watch yourself. I'm going to shoot this leg chain off.”

Mercer Haldane crunched with fright. Then he shrugged. “I hope your aim's good. I intend to live long enough to bring Victor down to his knees.”

Smith shot out the chain lock and helped the old man up. “My other associate's in the lab. We're trying to locate Tremont's research records.”

“He must have his illicit records hidden. I tried to find them, too.”

Jon patted Marty on the back. “You didn't have my secret weapon.”

When Jon and Marty strode into the laboratory with the short old man red-faced and angry under a shock of white hair, Randi was waiting for them. She had locked the four lab technicians in the conference room.

“What was all the shooting? You nearly gave me a coronary.”

Jon introduced Mercer Haldane and asked, “What did the technician tell you?”

“They work for Tremont and Associates. The password into their computer is Hades.”

Marty made a beeline to the nearest terminal, Haldane on his heels. Marty's face was almost relaxed, so happy was he to be returning to a world he understood. Without looking at Haldane, Marty handed him his bullpup, sat, flexed his fingers, and went to work. Haldane rolled a stool over so he could sit next to him. Jon followed and took the bullpup Enfield away from the former CEO. He was not about to trust him.

Smith quietly explained to Randi, “Mercer Haldane is the former chairman and CEO of Blanchard. Last week Tremont forced him out and took over.”

“How could he do that?”

“Old-fashioned blackmail, he says. But I think he was bought off, too. A cut of the Hades Project. That's what Tremont named the virus and serum project. He kept it hidden from Haldane and Blanchard for more than a decade.”

“A perfect name for the horror they're causing. What else did he tell you?”

“Just about what we'd figured. Tremont found the virus in Peruvian Amazonia and brought it back to Blanchard along with a crude native cure: the blood of monkeys that had survived the disease and were full of neutralizing antibodies. Some Indians down there drink the blood, and it saves a lot of them every year. Tremont set up his secret team with company money and personnel, and they did most of the work here to isolate the virus and develop their antiserum by cloning the genes that made the antibodies. Then the bastard used DNA repair enzymes to introduce a few subtle mutations into the viruses to make it become virulent progressively earlier.”

“That's all he could tell you?” She was disappointed.

“Yes. Except he's sure Tremont's caused this pandemic somehow.”

The shout of rage echoed through the lab. “Useless! It's all nothing!”

Marty was glaring at Haldane and the conference room where they had locked up the technicians. “There's nothing in the files of Tremont and Associates. It's all routine junk about antibiotics and vitamins and hair spray! That technician lied to us.”

“No,” Haldane realized. “That's Victor. It's a dummy company. These people are technicians. He used them but told them nothing. They think they're working for Tremont and Associates. The Hades password is his idea of a joke on anyone accessing his computer.”

Jon nodded. “That sounds like the kind of man who could run an experiment on humans in the Gulf War. But the real stuff has to be in there somewhere, Mart. Keep hacking. We've got to know.”

Marty sounded discouraged. His meds had not worn off yet. “I'll try, Jon. Only I really need my own―”

They heard a sudden sound outside the windows of the secret laboratory. Like a seasoned team, Jon and Randi dashed to look out. A car was approaching on the mountain road, a cloud of dust spinning out from the tires.

Adrenaline jolted Smith. “Mart! Haldane! Watch those technicians.”

Jon and Randi tore across the laboratory, out through the door, and down to the landing. Side by side, they dropped flat where they could see anyone below who passed through the corridor from the living room or the side door. Randi looked over at Jon, at his blue eyes so intense, at his wide face with the hard chin, his swept-back black hair. His expression was granite.

“Now what?”

“We'll know soon.” He did not look at her. He did not have to. He could feel her presence like a reassuring friend.

Two car doors closed. Footsteps rapidly approached the house. A voice spoke low and urgent.

CHAPTER FORTY FIVE

Rapid footsteps, soft and light, padded swiftly along the corridor from the back door.

“What the―” Randi began.

Before Jon could answer, the big Doberman, Samson, appeared at the bottom of the stairs. He looked up at the landing, bared his fangs, and bunched his powerful muscles to attack.

Smith stood up, his Beretta behind his back. “Samson, sit!”

Puzzled, the dog cocked his head. Jon repeated the command, and suddenly the animal seemed to identify him as one of the “friends” Bill Griffin had ordered him to sniff under the RV. Slowly he sank back on his haunches, still staring up.

Jon raised his voice. His face was eager. “Peter?”

The lean and leathery ex-SAS strolled into view, again wearing the trench coat buttoned over his black commando suit. “Who else? You don't think Samson would go over to the enemy, do you?” He and the Doberman climbed the stairs.

Randi jumped up. “Perish the thought. Good to see you, Peter.”

Smith's smile was broad. For a moment he looked ten years younger. “We've been worried.”

“No sentries outside. That your handiwork?”

Jon said, “Yes. Everyone else is at the ceremony, I expect.”

Randi added, “Except for four lab techs we've got locked up. And the former head of Blanchard, who's helping Marty at the computer.”

Randi stopped, and she and Jon stared at Peter, whose left arm was dangling straight down, useless. Blood had dried on Peter's left wrist and hand beneath the long trench-coat sleeve.

“You're wounded! How bad? Let me look at it,” Jon ordered.

“Pinprick.”

“Goddamn it, come up here and take off your coat.”

He held the laboratory door open as Peter sighed and topped the stairs, Samson at his side.

“Many,” Randi called as they entered. “Peter's here.”

Marty spun in his chair as Peter walked in. A smile of welcome wreathed his round face. The Englishman allowed himself a return smile. He and Marty stared at each other a long moment.

Finally Peter said, “Mustn't worry about me, my boy. Remember the old man's been through worse than this on more continents than he cares to name. Now get yourself back to work.” There was affection in his voice.

Marty's green eyes twinkled. He gave a short nod and returned to his chair. As he told Mercer Haldane about Peter, the Doberman appeared at Marty's side. Marty patted him, and the dog sighed and laid tiredly at his feet.

The Englishman said quietly to Jon, “Don't fuss. I've stopped bleeding. I'll be fine until I reach the docs.”

“I am a doc, you crazy Brit. Everything else about you may be working, but your memory's going south.”

Peter gave a wry grimace and laid the H&K submachine gun on a lab bench. Jon helped him off with his trench coat. Underneath, he wore only his commando trousers and webbed belt. His chest was naked. Bullets had struck him in the side and arm. He had wrapped what looked like pieces of a torn sheet around the wounds.

As Peter unwound the cloth, Randi got the older male technician from the conference room. He produced an extensive first-aid kit. The wound in the upper chest below the armpit had gone cleanly through the flesh around an upper rib. It appeared to have cracked the rib, but touched nothing vital. The arm injury was a shallow tunnel through muscle. The bleeding had all but stopped. Jon washed the wounds, applied antibiotic, rebandaged each one properly, and insisted Peter take at least aspirin.

Smith told him, “You need a hospital, but that will hold you for now.”

“Good as new,” Peter declared. “Tell me what you've found.”

“We're pretty sure this is where Tremont and his associates did most of the actual work. Marty and Haldane are trying to bust into the records now. Tremont pushed Haldane out only last week. Blackmail, he says, but I suspect he settled for a big cut of the billions they'll all make. Then his conscience started bothering him.”

“It'd be pleasant if conscience bothered more people,” Peter observed. “Shall we see what progress they've achieved?”

“Not a damn thing.” Randi shook her head with discouragement. “Marty's still loosening up from his meds and having trouble figuring how the records are entered. This system's unconnected to Blanchard's mainframe, so Haldane's stumped.”

Randi was leaning over Marty and Mercer Haldane as Marty manipulated the keyboard and Haldane sat beside him, interpreting what he found.

“Tell the boy,” Peter said, wincing as the simple act of speaking tweaked his wounds, “he had best hurry. Samson and I injured the enemy but we by no means put them out of action. That Arab we saw back in the Sierras appears to be the boss, just as Griffin said. He escaped unharmed with at least two of his men. The rest won't be active anytime soon, if ever.”

“Could they have followed you?” Randi wanted to know.

“Think not. But it's likely they'll eventually decide Griffin or Marty informed us of this lodge and that we're here. They could arrive with reinforcements any minute.”

Jon said, “You hear that, Mart?”

“I've tried everything I know,” Marty snapped testily. “Now I'm working to establish an untraceable link with my computer so I can use my own programs. Give me another few seconds.”

Both the testiness and the quickening of his speech showed his meds were almost gone, and they waited as patiently as they could.

“Someone better go down and watch,” Smith realized. “Not you, Peter.”

“Samson can go. He'll be a better lookout than any of us.”

As Peter sent the dog off, Marty shouted, “I'm connected!”

“Thank God,” Randi said fervently.

“All right, let's start a search for the company that operates this computer.” Marty worked the keyboard, and the screen began to flash permutations too fast for them to see. Finally on the screen appeared the logo and name of Blanchard Pharmaceuticals, Inc.

“That means Victor registered the machine to us, and we pay for it,” Haldane said. "An unexplained extra computer system was one item the accountants found they couldn't trace to any authorized research program.

Marty played across the keyboard. The screen continued to flicker through a series of computations. Finally a name flashed on: VAXHAM Corporation.

“What the devil is VAXHAM?” Haldane wondered.

Marty was leaning forward, concentrating. He clicked on VAXHAM, and it lit up with a long series of directories. One was “Laboratory Reports.” He punched in and scrolled rapidly through the dated entries all the way back to the very first one: January 15, 1989. Jon leaned over his shoulder.

“Wow,” Jon breathed. “A report of the first restriction enzyme mapping of the monkey virus from Peru! Now we're getting somewhere.” Smith pulled up a stool. He studied the restriction map of the virus and in his mind compared it to the same mapping of the one that had killed Sophia that he had studied at USAMRIID. He let out a long whistle and looked up. “No surprise, but at last we have confirmation. They're almost identical ― in fact, they may be identical. The monkey virus and the one killing people are the same.”

Randi said angrily, “Victor Tremont knew it all along.”

Each year listed a summary of the technical findings for virus and serum. They showed a steady lessening of the incubation time in victims before the final fatal outbreak and the steady increase in serum effectiveness on the virulent stage ― at least in a petri dish and later in monkeys. Again it was confirmation of what they had guessed. But Marty could find no data about the Iraq experiments nor how the virus had suddenly spread like a contagion across the world from remote Peru ― or from Victor Tremont and his VAXHAM Corporation.

“The last directory is blocked by a password,” Marty announced. Then he sneered, “Complacent fools, they think they can keep out Zellerbach the Magician!”

He raised his hands as if he were a concert pianist and attacked the keyboard. Using his own software, he sent the screen into a paroxysm of kaleidoscopic words, questions, commands, and images. It took a matter of seconds.

“There!” Marty chortled. “How absurdly commonplace.”

A single short phrase appeared on the screen: Lucifer at Home.

“Hades,” Jon groaned.

“People,” said Marty pompously, “are both unimaginative and predictable.”

He entered the password. The first documents that appeared were a meticulous series of financial spreadsheets and summary reports covering every year from 1989 to the present. The corporate officers were listed: Victor Tremont, with some 35 percent of the stock, and George Hyem, Xavier Becker, Adam Cain, and Jack McGraw with 10 percent each.

In his heightened state, Marty saw the connection instantly: “VAXHAM. With Tremont, an acronym of first and last names: Victor, Adam, Xavier, Hyem and McGraw, with an extra `A' to make it look like a word.”

“Those are some of the best people in the company.” Haldane was aghast. “All of them head departments, and McGraw's security. No wonder they could get away with so much for so long.”

Major stockholders were listed: Mal. Gen. Nelson Caspar and Lt. Gen. Einar Salonen (Ret.). “There's your army connection,” Randi told Jon. She shook her head with disgust.

“Also the government,” Haldane said furiously. “Nancy Petrelli. She's Health and Human Services. And there's Congressman Ben Sloat.”

Marty was still searching. “These seem to be year-by-year statistics of progress on the project. Reports of operations, I guess.” He paused. “Here are data about antibiotic shipments.”

Jon and Haldane leaned closer.

Haldane was surprised. “Those are Blanchard antibiotics. All of them. And the figures appear to be our total shipments for each year.”

Puzzled, they read on until Smith suddenly inhaled sharply. He stood up, radiating rage. “That's it!” His face was tight, his high cheekbones prominent under the harsh overhead fluorescent lights. His dark blue eyes had blackened into bottomless pits. He seemed to be fighting disbelief, violence, and grief.

Mercer Haldane looked up, and Randi turned to stare.

“What is it, my boy?” Peter had been sitting off to the side, weary and in pain, but the look on Jon's face had snapped him out of his exhaustion.

Jon's voice was arctic. “Marty, print it out. All of it. Start with the corporate progress reports. And do it fast!”

“Jon?” Randi was watching his drawn face and empty eyes. He was worrying her. “What does it mean?”

Everyone focused on him. The lab was silent as his gaze slowly took in the test tubes, microscopes, and benches where so much despicable work had been done over the past decade. His chest burned, and his stomach felt as if a Mack truck had just slammed into it. He began to talk.

CHAPTER FORTY SIX

Jon's voice was hoarse, and he spoke slowly, as if he had to make certain he was precise in each word. “Those antibiotic shipments of Blanchard's tell the story. Remember when I explained that the virus isn't very contagious? So that led me to the question of how so many millions of people could get so terribly sick and die at about the same time. The answer is what we guessed ― Victor Tremont.” He hesitated. His hands balled into fists at his sides. He growled, “The bastard shipped the virus across the world in all of Blanchard's antibiotics. Antibiotics that were meant to cure people were also infecting them with an untreatable, deadly illness.” His eyes were haunted. “Tremont and his gang set it all in motion ten years ago. The Hades Project. For a decade he's been contaminating Blanchard's antibiotics to infect millions even though he knew he might never have a cure when the virus went into its fatal stages!”

“Bloody hell,” Peter said, his voice unbelieving.

Jon went on as if he had not heard. “They sent the virus out to create an epidemic that'd start ten years later, working to change the virus so that every year it would mutate into its lethal stage earlier and earlier. All so it would turn lethal to millions and millions this year, and they could cure it and make billions of dollars in profit. That was before they could know whether they'd ever have a serum, or that it'd be effective enough, or that it'd be stable and could be even shipped. They condemned millions of people to certain death on the gamble they could make them pay to save their lives.”

Randi shook her head, shocked. “It was all so Blanchard and Tremont could make billions of dollars. Get rich. Live well.” Her voice broke. “That's why Sophia died. She was in Peru and must've met Tremont there. That's the missing phone call. When she started studying the unknown virus, she remembered something, and she called Tremont. No wonder he had to stop her investigation.”

Jon looked at Randi as tears slid down her cheeks. His eyes grew moist and his throat thickened. She reached out and took his hand. He nodded and squeezed hers.

Haldane stood up, trembling with the horror of it. “Great Lord. I never imagined anything so obscene. All those poor sick people who needed our antibiotics. Trusting science and medicine to ease their suffering. Trusting Blanchard.”

Jon turned on the former CEO in fury. “How much were you going to make, Haldane, before your sudden change of heart?”

“What?” Haldane blinked at him. His wrinkled face became as angry as Jon's. “Victor forged my name. He tricked me! He made it look as if I'd approved everything. What was I supposed to do? He had me cornered, powerless. He was going to take my company. I deserved something! I―” He stopped as if hearing his own words, and he fell back down onto the stool. His voice dropped in shame. “I didn't know then what he'd done, how horrible the consequences would be. When I saw what it meant, I couldn't stay silent.” He laughed a derisive laugh at himself. “Too little, too late. That's what they'll say. As greedy as the rest, he found too little conscience, too late.”

“Sounds about right,” Jon said in revulsion. He turned his back on Haldane to face Peter and Randi. “We've got to―”

“Jon!” The cry was so loud and appalled that everyone whirled to its source. All but forgotten in the horror of the revelation, Marty had continued working the keyboard and peering at the screen. “They never stopped. Oh, no, no, no. They've not only put the virus in the antibiotics every year since, they're still doing it! It says here a shipment of contaminated medicine will go out today at the same time as the first antiviral serum shipment!”

A thunderous silence filled the room. They looked at one anotherJon, Randi, Marty, Peter, and Mercer Haldane ― as if they had not heard correctly. Could not have.

Jon's voice was stunned. “He's creating a pandemic that will go on and on.”

Randi added, “And make a nuclear bomb seem like a child's toy.”

Peter's pale blue eyes pierced the lab. He gripped his injured arm as if the pain had suddenly increased. “Then we must mess up the arsehole's plans.”

“We'd better hurry.” Marty was still reading from the computer screen. “Blanchard will have a little over two billion dollars in payments wired electronically from many countries as well as America the instant the first shipment leaves the plant.” He swiveled around. His eyes snapped with outrage. “And your Victor Tremont appears to have recently opened a bank account in the Bahamas. Probably in case of an unexpected emergency, wouldn't you think?”

“So if we don't stop him today,” Randi said, “another shipment of the virus goes out, and Tremont probably flies the coop with a billion dollars or so.”

“But how?” Mercer Haldane groaned, seeing any chance for redemption in the pages of history vanishing. “Victor gets the medal, and the shipment goes out in an hour! And the president will be at Blanchard with the secret service and FBI and every policeman the state and village can spare.”

Jon nodded. “The president!” A plan was forming in his mind. “That's how we stop Tremont. We show the president what he's done.”

“If we can get to him,” Randi said.

“With the proof on paper,” Peter added.

“And someone whom he'll believe,” Jon finished. “Not a discredited scientist like me, AWOL from the army and wanted for questioning.”

“Or a CIA agent who's probably been branded as rogue by now, too,” Randi agreed glumly.

Marty, who was still printing out the records of the Hades Project, said over his shoulder, “May I suggest Mr. Mercer Haldane, former chairman of Blanchard Pharmaceuticals, who, at least on paper, appears to be one of the heinous conspirators?”

Everyone stared at the white-haired executive. He nodded enthusiastically, seeing a chance to reclaim his self-respect. “Yes. I like that. I want to tell the president everything.” Then his eagerness faded. “But Victor would never let me get close.”

“I'm not sure anyone could personally reach the president today,” Randi agreed.

Jon pursed his lips, thinking. “Which leaves us back where we started. But we've got to stop Tremont some damn way.”

“And very soon,” Peter warned. “That bloody al-Hassan and his troops could show up here any second. Then where are we?”

“Who else will be at the ceremony?” Randi wondered. “The surgeon general? Secretary of state? The president's chief of staff?”

“They'll be just as well guarded,” Smith knew. “Besides, Tremont's people will see to it we don't get close. Tremont's security uses violence as their tool of choice. In some ways, they're a worse obstacle than the secret service.”

Randi ruminated, “I wish some of those foreign leaders were going to be there in person. We might have a chance to―”

“Wait.” Jon suddenly had another idea. He sat on the stool next to Marty. “Mart, can you break into a closed-circuit TV transmission?”

“Sure. Once I broke into a CNN transmission.” He laughed, remembering the prank. “Of course, that was only a local cable station, and I was in another studio in the building. I don't know about a national cable company. What's the company? What are the computer codes? Of course, I'd need a TV camera here, too.”

Mercer Haldane suggested, “There's a local studio in Long Lake village.”

“They'll be routing the feed through there,” Randi objected. “There'll be technicians everywhere.”

“We'll go in shooting if we have to. Could you tap into the cable from there, Mart?”

“I think so.”

“Okay, that's what we'll do.”

Peter was doubtful. “The whole village is going to be crawling with police tripping on each other's shoes.”

Movement at the perimeter of the room drew their attention. The older male technician who had brought the medical kit to Jon was walking slowly toward them. They had forgotten to lock him back into the conference room. His face was drained of color.

“I didn't know any of what you've just found out. All I do is routine analysis.” He held out a hand as if asking forgiveness. “I've taken Blanchard antibiotics myself. I have a family who―” He swallowed. “They've taken them, too, off and on over the years. I… maybe you should know Mr. Tremont has a small TV studio in the lodge. He had it installed to connect to the plant and to the local studio for making publicity and inspirational videos and live broadcasts. It's state-of-the-art. I can show you where it is.”

“Marty?” Jon asked.

“I'll probably need more time from there.” He was doubtful.

After the first shock of Tremont's monstrous plan had begun to wear off, Smith's mind had been clear and precise. Now it seemed as if his faculties had never been sharper. He checked his watch and barked orders. “We've got forty minutes. Randi, we're going to the ceremony to try to give the printouts of all the records to the president. If we can't get near, at least we can cause a disturbance and give Marty more time.” He turned to Peter. “You and Samson stay here to protect Mart and Haldane. Haldane, once you're on camera, you're going to give the speech of your life.”

“I will.” The former CEO nodded. “You can count on it.”

Pale from his wound, Peter murmured, “Piece of cake.”

“Take the lab technician to show you where the TV studio is, and we'll leave the three others locked up. We'll take the M-16s in case we need to make a lot of noise. All set?”

Everyone nodded. For a brief moment they gazed around at each other, as if for reassurance. Then they were a blur of action as they ran out of the lab. Peter, Marty, and Haldane followed the technician into the rear corridor. Jon and Randi sprinted outside to their rented car.

Randi drove fast along the mountain road in the late-afternoon sunlight. It was a shock to see how normal and beautiful the world looked. Less than a half mile from the lodge, they saw dust clouds rising ahead.

“Pull off!” Jon snapped.

Tires screeching, she sped the car off the road into the tall pines. A branch ripped off an outside mirror. With her Uzi and one of the M16s, and he with the other two M-16s, they leaped out of the car and ran back fifty feet. As they turned to look through the trees, they saw three SUVs racing along the road.

“There he is.” Jon recognized the lean Nadal al-Hassan from the Sierras in the front seat of the lead SUV. “No surprise.”

“Al-Hassan,” Randi agreed, remembering him from outside Peter's battered RV.

“Shoot at them with everything we have so they'll think there's a lot of us, but don't hit the tires.”

“Why the hell not?” Randi demanded.

“We need to make them follow us and leave the lodge alone.”

Using both hands, they dodged from side to side and fired their weapons. They hit mostly air but still caused enough damage to send all three vehicles careening off the road. As soon as the tires of the third SUV skidded to the side, Jon and Randi loped back to their car. Randi pulled out onto the road again and, as they sped past al-Hassan and his men, they saw one of the three SUVs had its front tires shot out. It was out of commission, abandoned in the trees.

“Damn!” Jon swore.

“Peter and Samson will handle them if they have to.”

The two other SUVs had smashed windows but no major damage. They bumped back onto the road. As they watched in the rearview mirror, two men ran from the disabled vehicle and clambered aboard the others as they turned to chase Jon and Randi toward the county highway, a mile and a half ahead.

“Stay ahead until we hit Long Lake village,” Smith said. “Keep them chasing us.”

“Piece of cake,” Randi replied in Peter's voice, smiling grimly.

CHAPTER FORTY SEVEN

The sun was low in the mountain sky, and it was one of those beautiful afternoons in the Adirondacks that sent shivers of pleasure into the souls of any nature lover. Rich autumn colors showed in the leaves of the towering hardwoods. The pines seemed to grow straight up to the blue sky. The air was crisp and clean. Daisies were still in bloom. Outside on the lawn in the center of the sprawling complex that was Blanchard Pharmaceuticals' headquarters, an audience of dignitaries sat in white folding chairs at the back of the raised platform, waiting eagerly for the formalities of this notable occasion to begin. Before the platform stood an animated crowd.

As he waited in the tent erected to protect him, President Samuel Adams Castilla contemplated the festivities with satisfaction. Composed of local citizens of the rural region, representatives from most nations on earth, and editors, columnists, and reporters from all the major news media everywhere, the audience was everything a president who had an election to win could have wanted. This historic ceremony being telecast to every corner of the world and, more important, to the American people should assure his reelection by a landslide.

Next to him stood Victor Tremont, whose gaze moved slowly across the surging throng. His thoughts were far less sanguine. He was consumed with an uneasy foreboding, as if his father stood over his shoulder saying again, “No one can have everything, Vic.” He knew there was no realistic basis for such defeatism, but he could not seem to shake off the worry. That infernal Smith and the stupid Russell woman's CIA sister had once again escaped the best efforts of al-Hassan and his men. They had vanished, and Tremont had heard nothing from al-Hassan since.

Despite his confidence that he had prepared for any emergency, it concerned him, and he studied the crowd for a sign of the pair. He wished to God he had never taken that phone call from Sophia Russell. Why had she remembered that momentary encounter more than a dozen years ago? Chance. The completely unforeseeable element in everything.

But it would not stop him.

He was just reanalyzing all his actions when the first blaring brass bars of “Hail to the Chief” began.

“We're on,” the president said with relish. “This is a grand moment, Dr. Tremont. Let's make the most of it.”

“Agreed, Mr. President. And thank you again for the honor.”

Ushered by the secret service, he and the president stepped out. Applause began with a trickle and quickly grew thunderous. The two men smiled and waved. Following instructions given him earlier, Tremont hung back so the president could march first toward the platform. He followed, trying to memorize the details of this exciting occasion. The platform was decorated with yards of red, white, and blue bunting. The podium was fronted by the presidential seal in blue and gold. Behind the platform rose a towering closed-circuit TV screen so everyone could view the dignitaries from around the world who would participate with live speeches.

The president first, they mounted the stairs to continuing applause. The six rows of seated dignitaries sprang to their feet to greet the president. There were all the members of the cabinet, including a beaming Nancy Petrelli; the chairman of the Joint Chiefs with his executive aide, Maj. Gen. Nelson Caspar; the New York congressional delegation; and the ambassadors of fifty nations.

At the podium, Surgeon General Jesse Oxnard, his massive head and mustache dominating everything, clapped with the others. At last he stepped to the podium to make introductions.

Jon and Randi stood among the crowd a few yards apart and near the back.

They had managed to evade their partly disabled pursuers and arrive in Long Lake a half hour ago, where they had searched along the packed sidewalks for ways to change their appearances. At last they had found an outdoor clothing store, then a toy store and a drugstore on the main street, which was one of the few highways that crossed the Adirondack Wilderness. They bought supplies at all three and used public restrooms to change. When they finally emerged, he was darker-skinned and looked as if he belonged in this mountain region. He wore bulky hunting pants, a plaid hunting coat, and a ragged black mustache detached from a child's mask. She was in a mousy gray dress, flat heels, hair darkened with shoe polish, and a straw hat.

There were enough foreign observers and journalists to distract everyone's attention, so most people gave them only a few curious glances. Still, from around the periphery and up on the platform itself, the secret service, FBI, and Blanchard's security people continually scanned the hordes, alert to any intrusion.

Jon and Randi shifted locations frequently. They kept their heads down and quiet, friendly smiles on their faces. They made certain their muscles appeared relaxed.

Once the band struck up “Hail to the Chief” and everyone was riveted as President Castilla and Victor Tremont strode toward the platform, Randi moved closer to Jon to whisper, “The woman with the short silver hair wearing the knit business suit is Nancy Petrelli, and the general in the second row behind Admiral Brose is Nelson Caspar.”

“I expect Ben Sloat and old General Salonen are here somewhere, too.”

Their plan was simple: Work their way far enough forward to get the president's personal attention, and they would try to shout out their story. To wave their documents. To accuse Tremont and his cohorts to their faces with everyone as witnesses, and maybe to make one or more of them panic and reveal themselves. At least, to convince the president to hear. After all, this was a public gathering.

That was at the best.

At the worst, they wanted to give Marty a chance to break into the closed-circuit broadcast so Mercer Haldane could confirm everything they claimed.

But first, they had to slip through the crowd without attracting the sharp eyes of the hundreds of public and private security who were watching for interlopers, troublemakers, terrorists… and them.

Muttering wildly to himself in the small TV studio, Marty worked feverishly at the computer in the state-of-the-art control room.

“Where are you, you beast! I know you're in there somewhere. Give me the code name and the password, damn you! Once more, the telephone company is…”

Mercer Haldane waited out in the studio with the four technicians and a series of blowups of the computer records. Behind them was a photographic backdrop of an Adirondack woodland scene, the high peaks of Whiteface and Marcy in the distance. Haldane's cheeks were sweating. He continually mopped them as he watched Marty through the control room window. He glanced often and nervously at his watch.

“…All right, yes! I have you. I'm into the telephone company. Now the line into the local TV cable station. Come on… come on… I know you want me to find you… yes, that's it… damnation!..”

At the studio door, Peter kept guard on the corridor, listening for any sounds of warning from Samson. He also glanced from time to time at his watch while he observed Marty's frantic efforts.

“. Ah-ha! Got you. Now, the control room. Here we go… here we… Zounds and putridity! You won't stop me… you can't…” Sweat dripped from Marty's face, and his fingers pounded the keyboard as he frantically searched for the key into the system.

As the surgeon general continued to talk, extolling the virtues of Victor Tremont and the wisdom of the president, Jon and Randi edged forward in parallel paths, slowly converging again as they advanced. Jon saw Victor Tremont's pockmarked killer, Nadal al-Hassan, in deep conversation with a man who looked as if he were the chief FBI agent present. Al-Hassan's arm swept over the crowd as he held a sheaf of photos in his lean hand. Jon did not have to guess whom the photos pictured. He repressed a worried groan.

The surgeon general's introduction ended, and the president stepped to the podium. His face was solemn as his gaze slowly traversed the faces in the audience and turned to do the same to all the dignitaries seated behind him. He continued on in a full circle across the vigilant backs of the secret service and Tremont's security team until he again faced the rapt crowd.

“These are terrible times,” he began. “The world suffers. Millions die. And yet we are here to celebrate. And it is entirely fitting that we should do so. The man we come to honor will go down in history not only as visionary but as a great humanitarian. He…”

As the president continued in rousing, cadenced tones, Jon and Randi moved inexorably forward, sometimes only a few steps, other times several feet at a time. They were careful to make no one angry. To attract no undue attention. And to appear to be enthralled with the president's speech as it came quickly to its peroration: “…It is my eternally grateful pleasure to present the nation's highest civilian award to Dr. Victor Tremont, a giant sun that will soon shed light on this great darkness into which we have all been plunged.”

Attempting to appear solemn but honored, humble but strong, while suppressing his real response of a loud, triumphal laugh, Victor Tremont moved toward the podium with what came out as a grotesque grimace. The medal was presented and accepted with a modest embarrassment, and the giant TV screen sprang to life with the image of the British prime minister towering over them all.

Nadal al-Hassan's mirrored black eyes slowly traversed the surging crowd. His face was expressionless, and his dark, narrow head moved like a praying mantis as his cold gaze paused on a face that resembled one or the other of his quarries, on a shoulder that looked familiar, on a military posture among the packed throng.

They would be here, he was sure. Smith had proved to be a far more resourceful and dangerous adversary than he had ever expected. He had little faith in the state or local police of this rustic town, in McGraw's private security force of old soldiers and retired policemen, or in the FBI, and he was well aware that the secret service agents would confine their vigilance to the immediate safety of the president. The protection of Victor Tremont and the Hades Project rested on his shoulders.

His eyes were hooded as they continued to work the crowd. In the cold twilight, the pocks in the tall man's skin seemed deeper in the hollows of his face. He inhaled the pungent odor of wood smoke carried in the cold evening air. The scent reminded him of his nomadic youth around the campfires of northern Iraq. Those were not memories he cared to dwell on. He had come far from those poor beginnings, and the Hades Project would be the culmination of his long escape. No one was going to stop his success.

As he thought that, he saw them.

Smith had disguised himself in bulky hunting pants, a plaid hunting coat, and a ragged black mustache. The CIA woman wore a gray dress, hair darkened with shoe polish, and a straw hat. But they could not hide from him.

He whispered to McGraw and started forward, fighting the crowd. Excitement spread through him.

His eyes haggard, his back bent, his face so close to the keyboard his sweat dripped onto the keys, Marty battled to overcome the last barrier and assume control of the cable transmission. He had long since ceased to mutter and cry out. He had lapsed into a deep and determined silence as he struggled.

Mercer Haldane stood with the technicians in front of the single camera. It was switched on, focused, and waiting. He continued to mop the sweat that poured down his face under the hot lights. No one made small talk. The room seemed to bristle with tension.

At the studio door, Peter no longer watched the corridor outside or listened to anything but the silence that seemed to stretch endlessly. He did not know what was happening in Long Lake village, but he knew the speeches must have begun at least ten minutes ago, and he hoped that by now Jon and Randi were approaching the platform to shout out their accusations in front of the president, the crowd, the secret service, Tremont, and the worldwide TV audience.

Accusations they would have no chance to prove… unless Marty broke into the transmission in the next few seconds.

Jon and Randi had reached the second row of packed spectators. Just ahead was the raised stage with its colorful patriotic bunting. The entire throng ― all the dignitaries, Victor Tremont, and the president ― were staring up at the giant image of the prime minister heaping praise and gratitude on Victor Tremont.

Jon took a breath, nodded to Randi, and they abruptly pushed through the last people and shouted up to the president's turned back.

Smith bellowed: “Tremont is a fraud and a mass murderer!” He waved the printouts of the secret records. “He caused this pandemic himself! For money. To extort billions from the world!”

The president turned in shock at Jon's first shout.

Victor Tremont spun to face them, shouting back: “They've got guns! That man is a fugitive from the military, a rogue scientist, and a killer. Shoot him!”

The secret service leaped from the platform and ran toward Jon.

Randi took up the cry. “Tremont's still infecting millions of people! He's sending out the virus in his antibiotics. He's shipping infected antibiotics every day. Even today!”

Nadal al-Hassan and his men struggled through the crowd toward them. Jack McGraw was bawling orders at his security guards.

Jon battled in the grip of the secret service. He managed to wave his papers. “I have the proof! I have their records. I…”

The secret service swarmed him to the ground.

Other secret service and FBI men pounced on Randi. Pain shot through her shoulders. They found her Uzi. “She's armed!”

Nadal al-Hassan had almost reached them, his gun hidden at his side.

Marty shouted into his microphone, “We're in!”

“Go!” Peter cried.

Mercer Haldane stared into the camera, took a deep breath, and started to talk.

On the platform, more secret service grabbed the president to hustle him away.

The giant screen above the milling crowd went dark for a second, and then Mercer Haldane appeared with his white, flowing hair and dignified face. He was standing in the secret laboratory. Behind him the four lab technicians held up giant blowups of the most damning printouts. Watching from below, the crowd fell into a surprised hush.

“My name is Mercer Haldane.” His words boomed. Somehow Marty had managed to increase the volume. “Until last week, I was chairman and CEO of Blanchard Pharmaceuticals. I have news about the virus that all of you must listen to carefully. Your lives depend on it. A great evil has been perpetrated on all of us by Victor Tremont.” Shocked by his words, everyone's attention was riveted, including the secret service. “Ten years ago, Victor inaugurated a monstrous secret plan. He called it the Hades Project, and he infected twelve soldiers in the Gulf War, six on each side of the conflict, with a unique and deadly virus he had found in the Peruvian jungle. Then he contaminated Blanchard's antibiotics with the live virus and shipped it across the world. This virus would lie dormant for―”

On the platform, the president had stopped to listen. Still closely surrounded by the watchful agents, he stared up at the mammoth screen, his eyes slowly blinking as he took in Mercer Haldane's story. All the dignitaries had focused on it, too. The great crowd stood in an eerie silence as Mercer Haldane pointed to record entries, to dates, to figures.

The audience began to murmur, softly at first like a distant tornado barely heard, and then louder and louder.

The secret service agents relaxed their holds on Jon and Randi.

On the giant screen, Haldane showed the list of officers and stockholders in the secret VAXHAM Corporation.

As a shudder of understanding and belief seemed to sweep over the throngs, the president barked an order. Secret service and FBI agents went to stand beside Nancy Petrelli, General Caspar, Ben Sloat, an angry General Salonen, and the four officers of VAXHAM.

The president scanned the audience. “Bring those two who were shouting. I want to see the records they were trying to show me.”

Randi brushed away the FBI and secret service agents, jumped onto the platform, and handed her printouts to President Castilla. “Sir, you must arrest Victor Tremont at once, or he'll escape and transfer billions of dollars to his offshore accounts.”

The president scanned the papers and barked an order. The secret service and FBI agents spread out, looking for Tremont.

The chief of detail ran up to the platform. “He's not here, Mr. President. Victor Tremont is gone!”

Randi searched all around, too. Her voice rose. “So is Jon!”

“Find them!” the president shouted.

The hallways in the storage basement of the main building of Blanchard Pharmaceuticals, Inc., were brightly lighted and filled with boxes, file cabinets, and discarded office furniture and equipment. Beneath that level was the sub-basement where the lights were dimmer. Here spread all the machines to heat, air-condition, supply, and operate the big two-story building. The equipment made a quiet hum.

Under that was yet a third level, unmarked. Seldom visited. It was dark, damp, and rived with narrow corridors. It was not silent. Running footsteps echoes from the walls as Victor Tremont and Nadal al-Hassan rushed along with the speed and certainty of those who knew where they were going. Each carried a weapon. They passed an ordinary steel door on the right. They did not stop but continued on to the wall at the very end. This wall was as smooth and unbroken as all the rest in the dank sub-sub-basement. Simply the end of the corridor, apparently.

Victor Tremont took a small black box from his suit-jacket pocket.

Nadal al-Hassan, his weapon ready, watched warily back along the side corridor.

Tremont pressed a button on the box. The entire wall slid heavily to the left, revealing a hidden vault door made of the strongest steel available when it had been built on Tremont's orders at the time he had Blanchard's operations moved to the Adirondack Wilderness. Tremont was shaking. He spun the combination lock, and the massive door rose a few millimeters up on pneumatic lifts and slowly swung open.

“Clever,” Jon said as he stepped from the main corridor, the Beretta held steady in both hands. He aimed it at the two fugitives, who looked up. While Mercer Haldane had been speaking to the stunned crowds, Jon had watched Victor Tremont slip away. Caught in the mass of bodies, Jon had been unable to work his way as swiftly as he had wanted. But in the end, it had not mattered. He had found Tremont.

Nadal al-Hassan never hesitated. A thin smile spread across his narrow face. He swung his Clock and fired before the echo of Jon's voice ceased.

The bullet missed Smith's throat by the thickness of a hair.

Jon did not hesitate or miss. All the horrors of the past two weeks swept over him in an unforgettable second. He pulled the trigger, and al-Hassan fell forward without a sound. He lay spread-eagled, his blood pooling on the gray concrete floor at the side of his head.

Victor Tremont's bullet did not miss either. It stabbed like searing ice through the upper part of Jon's left leg. It hurled him against the wall, which caused Tremont's second and third shots to fly past and ricochet, whining away along the main corridor.

Propped against the wall, Jon fought to stay conscious. He fired again. His bullet hit Tremont's right arm, knocking him back against the half-open door and sending his pistol flying with a metallic clatter to the floor. It bounced and skidded, and the sound reverberated away along the secret corridors like a dying cry.

Dragging his bloody leg, Jon advanced on the mass murderer.

Tremont did not cringe. He lifted his chin, his eyes glowing with the certainty that any man had his price. “I'll give you a million dollars! Five million!”

“You don't have a million dollars. Not anymore. You're dead. They'll electrocute you.”

“They won't find me.” He jerked his head behind him toward the half opened door. “I destroyed the plans. No one knows an exit is here. I had it built by foreigners. The money's already transferred where no one can find it.”

“I thought you'd have some plan.”

“I'm not a fool, Smith. Thev'll never find me.”

“Not a fool,” Jon agreed. “Just a ghoul. A murderer of millions. But that's statistics. The world will have to deal with you for that. But you killed Sophia, and that's personal. I get to decide what to do. You ended her life with a wave of your hand: Eliminate her. Now it's my turn.”

“Half! I'll give you half.! A billion dollars. More!” Tremont shrank back against the massive steel door, his long body cowering.

Jon limped forward, the Beretta steady in both hands. “I loved her, Tremont. She loved me. Now―”

It was Randi's voice behind him. “No, Jon. Don't. He's not worth it.”

“What do you know? I loved her, dammit!” His finger tightened on the trigger.

“He's finished, Jon. The FBI is here. The secret service. They've got them all. The serum's on its way to stop the dying, and they've confiscated all the antibiotics. Let them deal with him. Let the world deal with him.”

Smith's face was fierce. His eyes glowed like coals. His chin jutted. He took another step closer, the Beretta steady, inches from Tremont's trembling face. The arrogant executive tried to speak again, to say something, but his mouth and lips and tongue were too dry. All that came out was a whimper.

“Jon?” Randi's voice was suddenly soft, close.

He glanced back over his shoulder and saw Sophia. It was her lovely face, her large, intelligent eyes and sweet smile. He blinked. No, it was Randi. Sophia. Randi. He shook his head to clear it. He knew what Randi wanted, and what Sophia would have wanted.

He made himself take another deep breath. He glared once more at the shaking Tremont. Then he lowered the gun and stumbled away, his wounded leg dragging. He brushed past Randi and pushed through the ranks of FBI and secret service. Some of the agents reached out to stop him.

“Let him go,” Randi said gently. “He'll be all right. Just let him go now.”

Jon heard her behind him, but a rush of tears was blinding his eyes. He could not stop the tears. Did not want to. They poured silently down. He turned into the main corridor and hobbled on toward the distant stairs.