Unacceptable Risk

Chapter 8

Grady was describing the differences between Michael Bowden and Sam to Jill when she heard a loud boom over the phone, followed immediately by the screeching of the alarm.

"Oh shit," Jill shouted, then began talking as if recording events. "We've been hit, probably by a small rocket. Pro bably didn't understand the layout of the building. Sounds like it went into the auto parts store. Just a minute." Jill had obviously covered the receiver. The muffled sounds contin ued for what seemed like an eternity; then Jill was on the line again. "They're telling me it damaged the back wall in the men's dorm room. Tons of dust in here already. The com puter room seems safe. I hear someone screaming. God… Sam had a plan if this ever happened. Police will be coming. Oh God, Grady, I gotta go. Have Sam call me."

Grady tried to reassure herself that none of her friends were hurt. She ran to find Sam. At moments like this he became her mother, father, and whatever else mattered. Down the hall from Michael she found him at a nurse's station.

"Sam, they've shot a rocket at the office or blown it up or something. I think everyone's okay. Jill says the computer is safe. But it hit the dorm, I think… I…"

Sam put his arm around her and moved with her to a pri vate room. He called Jill on his sat phone. Grady put her ear up to his and tried to make out what Jill was saying.

"It's bad. Wounded people all over the store. Customers. I'm having them tarp the hole in the back wall as fast as they can. Big Brain is sealed and the dust hasn't gotten to it. The temperature control still works. Grogg's not letting anyone in or out of the computer room."

"Okay. Go to the safe and open it. Go to the lockbox marked Emergency. Punch in my birthday and your birthday followed by 533561298. Then follow the instructions ex actly. It will tell you everything to do. You will be in the new office and running by tomorrow or the day after. All the se curity will be in place seventy-two hours after that. I'm com ing right away."

"We think we got the people who did it. We noticed a van just driving around. I called the local police and some of your retired friends. They followed the van, put it together. The van was actually a getaway vehicle. There were two guys with a rocket launcher in a third-story window of the Grey Building. One of the offices was empty. Our guys were just a little late and watched the rocket exit the window. When the suspects came out, there was a shoot-out. The van driver and the two rocket boys are dead. They must have been shot ten times each. None of our guys were hurt."

"I'm sure it's Gaudet. The question's whether it's a diver sion," Sam said. "Could mean he's setting up to grab Bowden down here. I don't know. But if he wanted my atten tion, he certainly got it. First thing to do is move Bowden to Rio."

While they moved Michael, Sam was constantly on the phone for updates from the office. The van was stolen and had stolen plates. There was no way to trace the men or even to determine their nationality. They were Caucasian and their photos and prints matched no record of the FBI, Interpol, or Scotland Yard.

Using a private jet, Sam moved Michael Bowden to Santa Maria Hospital, a large private hospital associated with the Universidade do Estado do Rio de Janeiro, a teaching hospi tal and medical school. Expertise here would be better and medical supplies more plentiful. They had run out of the antibiotic vancomycin in Tabatinga; before leaving, Michael had insisted that the doctor pack his wounds with honey, ex plaining that it was the first-known antibiotic and a decent substitute for modern medicine.

Sam and Grady raised their eyebrows at the idea of honey- packed wounds, but the doctor went along with the plan, say ing that honey killed bacteria by sucking the moisture from the cells. Although it was unorthodox, it worked to slow in fection.

The move between hospitals was accomplished so effi ciently that in a matter of hours Michael lay in surgery at Santa Maria, where the wounds were debrided and the physicians removed bone chips created by the passage of the bullet through his leg. The prognosis was for a quick recovery and little, if any, permanent damage.

After surgery the staff took Michael to a private room in a corner, where he could be watched by Sam's half-dozen security people on duty at any given time. Sam and Grady sat by his bed at about the time they thought he would awaken.

After a few false starts at consciousness, Michael came to.

"I need to go back to the States," Sam told him.

"I'll be staying with you and the security team," Grady added.

Before Michael could respond, Sam continued. "Some one attacked my offices in Los Angeles, and I'm sure Gaudet was behind it. I'm worried about leaving you because there's a chance Gaudet knows you're here. I'm going to be hunting him, and soon we'll move you to a safer place. Meanwhile, you're in good hands with Yodo."

Michael didn't seem to have the strength or will to respond He simply nodded; then, within minutes, he nodded off.

Sam was gone three hours later.

Devan Gaudet sat in a Tabatinga cafe near the clinic. Across from him was a young English-speaking doctor by the name of Costa. The restaurant was constructed of plywood over studs and had watermarks on the walls and in the corners of the ceilings. The furnishings were vinyl and all the surfaces pastel Formica. It was nothing to brag about in the way of cleanliness, and Gaudet was anxious to complete his busi ness and leave.

The young doctor flirted with the waitress and wolfed down Portuguese sweet bread and linguica sausage while Gaudet spoke to him.

"If you can help me, there will be money in it. A lot of money," Gaudet said.

"I didn't know journalists paid lots of money."

"Well, I'm a writer of feature articles-series pieces- and to get what I need, I spend my own money."

"And you just want me to find a doctor in Rio who can help get you an interview? I don't even know whether Bowden's gone to Santa Maria."

"Why would Dr. Torres be calling surgeons in Rio if Bowden wasn't going there?"

"Any number of reasons. Like asking about the efficacy of putting honey in the patient's wounds."

"I think he's going to Rio. Are you with me?"

Dr. Costa leaned his bearded face forward and held out his hand.

"I'm trusting that you are a legitimate reporter with Le Monde, out to write good things about Dr. Bowden."

"You can count on it."

Dr. Costa met Gaudet back at the cafe two hours later.

"I found someone, a Dr. Ayala. He is not from a wealthy family. Like all doctors in residency, he does not make much. I don't know him well, but I think he'll work with you."

Santa Maria was large and, at least outwardly, looked like any European or American teaching hospital. The young doctor Ayala located the famous Dr. Bowden in the surgical wing fairly easily, even though he was admitted under an other name.

Gaudet met Ayala just down the street from the hospital in a coffee shop. For their purposes they agreed he would be Dr. Burre, a French trauma surgeon visiting relatives in Brazil. Ayala was a good-looking man, big, probably six feet three inches, with Anglo complexion and features. Gaudet discerned the doctor's interest in money almost immediately. He played that to the hilt, asking only for a brief interview with Bowden-alone-and a similar interview with Grady, the young woman, accompanying him.

Gaudet and Ayala each wore a white coat and entered Santa Maria Hospital at eight o'clock on a Tuesday evening. They waited in a radiology section of the hospital, which was quiet at that time of the day.

The doctor left Gaudet and went about his duties. Gaudet used the time well, exploring every portion of the radiology wing and the neighboring radioisotope studies lab. When Dr. Ayala returned at one in the morning, they entered the eleva tor and headed for the med surg wing. His room location was obvious: no other patient had a handful of estrangeiros led by a mountainous Japanese man outside the door.

Dr. Ayala had done substantial preparation with the nursing staff. According to the good doctor, the preparations had included certain intimacies in the broom closet with a fairly fat chief nurse, plus chocolates for the others. The staff was allowed in on the secret efforts of a famous French journalist and agreed to look the other way, if not to help.

Gaudet had one concern. He did not like the way Dr. Ayala stared at his face. No doubt to a trained eye, the beard could be seen as part of a very careful makeup job. Gaudet deliberately made himself up to look like a green-eyed Abraham Lincoln. He wasn't a replica, but the similarity would be apparent to a Lincoln aficionado. The gray-green of the eyes was created with contacts. As they walked down the hall through the glare of the bright lights, Gaudet told Ayala that he needed a moment of privacy so they could talk. The doctor showed him to an exam room.

"You are staring at my disguise. Do you think it is unsatisfactory?"

"I didn't know you had one. Why would a journalist wear a disguise?"

"Bowden is publicity-shy. He has tried to dodge me in the past, and if he recognizes me, he might not give me the in terview."

"I would have thought an author like him would welcome the publicity."

"Well, he will in the end enjoy the publicity for his books. But I believe that he's been having a romantic relationship with the young lady in his room. He worries that journalists will dwell on that aspect of his life. I come from France. I have no interest in writing about that sort of thing, but…" Gaudet shrugged at the silliness of the notion.

Unfortunately, Ayala appeared mildly skeptical.

"Listen," Gaudet continued. "I did not say this would be easy. If you make this happen, there is an extra U.S. three thousand dollars in it for you."

"In addition to the other?"

"In addition."

The doctor nodded. "But you are sure this will be good for Dr. Bowden?"

The young man's innocence was amusing. He was struggling hard to justify his role despite the payoff.

"Publicity never hurts an author. Your job is to get me alone with them without any guards present. With the guards my chances of getting a good interview are much less."

They exited the elevators on med surg and immediately ducked into a shower room. Nobody would be taking showers in the middle of the night. The hallways were gleaming and bright even with the lights slightly dim. They peered out through a small window in the door and watched in the di rection of room 317, where the estrangeiros remained congregated. Gaudet slowed his breathing and closed his eyes. Getting into the room without the guards might not be so easy after all.

Sam was in heavy traffic in a Rio taxi on the way to the Rio airport to catch the 11:55 pm flight to LA. Always he had put a high premium on his instincts. No matter how he thought about it, he couldn't imagine that Gaudet had gone personally to LA to fire a rocket into his offices. Had he done so, the explosion would have been more accurate. What else could it be but a distraction? A distraction de signed to move Sam out of South America.

"Take me back to the hospital," Sam said to the cabbie.

The driver looked back to indicate his puzzlement.

Sam made a circle with his finger and pointed back up the street, the way they had come.

"Ah. You… ahhh… leave… ahhh… forget… the suit case?"

The driver made a couple of turns and headed back to the hospital. Sam began looking at his watch, knowing that in the traffic it could take an hour or more. Using the cell phone, he called Jill and explained his decision. She told him that they would be fine and that the move was already going smoothly.

Gaudet moved in beside the gurney, trying to determine what might go wrong with his plan. They passed through the throng of security people, the towering Japanese immedi ately behind Dr. Ayala, who pushed the gurney.

Grady walked on the far side of the gurney, holding Bowden's hand. They were going to the X-ray lab to perform some X-rays requested by the surgeon. It was a final check for any remaining bone fragments.

It was unlikely that Dr. Ayala, who wasn't assigned to the case, would be talking with the surgeon about Bowden's case, but no one questioned it. It was equally unusual that a first-year resident in internal medicine would be taking a pa tient to the X-ray lab. Normally, it would be done by an X-ray technician and the only doctor who might be present would be a radiologist and then only if it was a special study-in those circumstances the radiologist would wait in the radiology department. Dr. Ayala had told Gaudet all this, and even so, he risked it. So far, so good.

Ayala's face showed the stress he felt. He was probably wondering how he'd explain all of this if someone brought it up when the chief resident returned tomorrow.

Gaudet's greatest concern had been that Grady Wade would suspect him. So far, there had been no sign of any recognition whatsoever. Things were going remarkably well.

It was late evening in Rio. At such times people in a hos pital naturally held their voices down and moved quietly. Almost all of the rooms were semidark or dark and they encountered only two nurses the entire length of the hallway. The hospital was designed with large wings and elevators in the center core. When they arrived at the elevators, Grady, the Japanese, two of the security men, and Dr. Ayala all got aboard. By his own observation it seemed to Gaudet that Grady and the big Japanese were by far the most observant. In the close quarters of a crowded elevator, they, if anyone, would discern that most of his face was a creation.

Grady held Michael's hand and watched his face in silence. When he looked back at her, it felt, as always, as if he were speaking to her, even though they said nothing.

The doctor from France, on the other hand, acted strangely. Actually, it was how he looked. He appeared to wear makeup. Was this a French affectation? And why would two doctors take a man to be x-rayed? She glanced at Dr. Burre. He looked like a man who wanted to shrink. The younger doctor Ayala from the hospital didn't seem comfortable either. It almost seemed as if they had terrible news they were reluctant to divulge.

The dark of the hallway began to make her uneasy, and the farther they went, the more they were becoming isolated. They went through a section subject to remodeling and the ceiling was partially torn out, exposing conduit and wires. This ugly wound in the building reminded her of a war zone.

She looked back at Yodo. He seemed watchful, as always. Their eyes met; now he knew that she was afraid. The gurney rolled silently over the vinyl tile and eight pairs of feet made a quiet patter as they walked. Normally, in a large group in a hospital one would feel completely safe, but Grady did not and she didn't know why.

"How much farther?" Yodo said.

"Almost there," Dr. Ayala replied.

The lights were inadequate here. It was dark enough that Grady could no longer tell the color of the paint on the walls.

They turned a sharp left, then went right through two large double doors and into a waiting area that was obviously closed for the evening. They proceeded through an other large single door and into the back and then into a central working area with X-ray viewing screens all around.

"We'll need you all to wait out here," Doctor Ayala said.

"I'm going with him," said Grady, "and so is Yodo."

"There is radiation in the room when we take a picture. Normally, you would be in the waiting room and not here. We have brought you as far as we can."

"Perhaps the young woman could come as the patient's representative," Dr. Burre said.

"There is a shield," Yodo spoke up. "In the wall. I have seen them. You stand behind it. So will we."

"I also wear a lead apron. And the rules don't allow for people in the X-ray area. But you can be right here and we will be right through that door."

"It'll be fine," Michael said. "Like the doctor said, Grady can come."

Yodo obviously didn't like it but acquiesced at least for the moment. Grady and Michael passed through the door and into a large room with odd-looking machines. Dr. Ayala kept going.

"Where are we going now?" Grady asked.

"Into another X-ray room with the correct equipment." Dr. Ayala flipped a light switch.

They went through a doorway and into a smaller X-ray room. It was very bare and seemed to have been built and furnished in an earlier era. In the middle stood a large metal bed with an X-ray unit overhead.

Dr. Burre closed the door and walked over to Dr. Ayala. As he did so, the young doctor's eyes seemed to freeze. He was trying to say something. His mouth seemed to be forming an O, as if to express surprise. Then he slumped forward. Dr. Burre was holding him up and then lowering him to the floor.

"What's wrong?"

Then Grady saw it. Protruding from the doctor's lab coat, just below his chest, was a bloody wooden handle and thick, deep red blood flowing onto the floor.

In horror Grady saw the gun aimed at her belly. In that moment she knew who he was.

"Dios mio." Michael sighed. He understood it as well.

"Please go through that door." Gaudet directed Grady to get behind the gurney. Tentatively she pushed it; it rolled easily. "This is going to be a mess here."

Gaudet had the gun to her back and there was nothing she could do. "Don't say a word. You understand?"

They rolled into another room that opened into a back area filled with strange-looking machines. Grady's mind flashed around the place, looking… thinking… how to escape. Having Michael on the gurney was like having her in shackles. Doorways, a hall, a gun at her back. Think, think!

They proceeded out of the next room and into a hall, ap parently having circumvented the main workroom where the others waited. There were several doors off this hall, but only one was labeled. It was in Portuguese and Grady couldn't understand its meaning. Grady guessed it was another lab, or perhaps a back door.

"In there," Gaudet said.

Inside were three treadmills and IV stands alongside each. It was some kind of physical-fitness testing area.

"Put your hands behind you," Gaudet said.

Instead, she looked around desperately, trying to imagine some way of escape, some salvation. Anything. But there was nothing.

"If you don't do it, I'll cut your face." A metallic sound, and she saw his razor-sharp knife.

She put her hands behind her and felt the cool steel close over her wrists. She felt herself starting to cry but stopped the tears knowing it would only incite Gaudet.

"See there, Michael? She's already imagining what I'll do to her and I haven't even told her yet. See the fear in her face? You could save her from great suffering."

"What do you want?"

Gaudet took a cord from his pocket. One end was tied with a hangman's noose.

"I carried this just for you. All that time we were walking from the room to the elevator and then from the elevator to here, I was playing with it in my pocket, waiting for the mo ment when I would slip it around your neck. Back up," he said to her. There was a wall and there were hooks on the wall for lab coats. He put the noose around her neck and drew it taut until it bit into her neck, constricting her airway. Next he was tying something and then he lifted her and it choked her again. Her eyes felt as if they were filling with blood. She fell back. Again he tied the line and lifted her. This time it remained taut.

"Stand on your toes." Pushing herself up, she could just breathe. Sharp pains cut through her feet as she struggled to keep the noose from tightening further. She had to remain on the balls of her feet or suffocate.

"Don't hurt her," Michael said. "Tell me what you want. Be rational."

Gaudet spoke quickly and without emotion. "You discov ered some organic material and sent it to Northern Lights. They in turn sold it to Grace Technologies. It had a profound effect on the human immune system. You understand what I'm saying, don't you?"

"I've heard about this substance, yes. And I believe it came from my work in the Amazon. But I collect thousands of samples each year. I have no idea which one worked in this way."

"Come, Dr. Bowden. You can do better than that." The knife tip bit into Grady's cheek. Blood trickled down to her neck.

"Depraved bastard," she said, through clenched teeth. "Don't tell him."

"Stop!" Bowden shouted. "Northern Lights showed special interest in a freshwater sponge. Maybe that's what you need. I first located it in 1998."

Gaudet seemed not to hear him. "You've heard how rape terrifies women, haven't you? It's nothing, nothing, compared to what a woman feels when you start cutting her face."

"I just told you what I know."

"Keep telling."

"I found it in a deep water stream in the Yavari Reserve. Six days' fast walk from a point about thirty miles above Angamos. The coordinates are in my 1998 journal."

"Where is the journal?"

"On its way to Cornell University."

"You understand how that doesn't help me, don't you?" The steel was back at Grady's face, the point working its way into her flesh.

"Tell him something." Michael plead with Grady.

"Raval," Grady choked out. "A man named Raval."

"What about Raval?"

"A Grace scientist. He may know how the m-molecule w-works," Grady sputtered.

"What molecule?" Gaudet demanded.

She quit talking.

"Tell him," Michael said again.

"It's Chaperone."

"Do you know about Chaperone?" Gaudet asked Mi chael.

"I heard about it from Grady's associate. Robert Chase."

"Oh, is that what he calls himself now? Well, Chaperone is merely a word. Make it more than a word."

"I would if I could. I don't understand it," Michael con fessed.

"Mmm-hmm. Do you want me to cut her face or her body first? Which will it be?"

"We're telling you everything we know."

Gaudet ripped the buttons down Grady's blouse and the yanking motion choked her. Grady lost her footing and struggled. The ceiling was starting to move. As the rope bit into her neck, she began gagging and couldn't stop. It felt as if her eyes were going to explode.

"Well, look at that, she's going to die."

His words were echoing now and she knew he was right. Her feet wouldn't support her and her legs were giving way. She felt her bladder go and the urine running down her legs. Then her body was hanging. It felt separate from the rest of her, quivering as Gaudet's hands touched her and his voice moved in circles like the ceiling.

"She pissed herself." She realized that Gaudet was prop ping her feet under her. In a few moments her legs supported her, but she was still on her toes.

"This can be terrifying as well," Gaudet was saying. "Hitler slowly hanged his errant generals repeatedly with piano wire. Doesn't your girl deserve better?"

Ignoring the pain in his leg, Michael rolled off the gurney and lunged at Gaudet. The look on Gaudet's face was grati fying, but a terrible thought entered Michael's mind. If he took down Gaudet, Grady would hang unsupported and suf focate.

Gaudet smiled as if reading his mind. Then the door be hind Michael burst open. Michael fell clumsily to the ground, white-hot pain shooting from his leg up his spine.

Robert Chase stood in the doorway.

Gaudet was backing away, his gun aimed at Grady, who was beginning to choke as the rope tightened. Robert moved swiftly to Grady to stop her strangling. Gaudet fired a single shot at Robert, then vanished out the door.

The bullet knocked Robert to the floor, and Grady began to choke again. Miraculously, Robert jumped back up and untied Grady, who fell into his arms. Her voice was barely more than a rasp, but Michael thought he heard her moan, "Sam."

Yodo entered, then ran out in the direction of Sam's nod. Sam closed up Grady's shirt and held her in his arms, but she pulled away and knelt over Michael, her eyes drawn to his leg.

The leg hurt and blood was seeping through the ban dages, but Grady had stopped crying, indeed she was smiling at him, and that was all that mattered to Bowden.

Sam forced his mind away from the pain in his chest where the steel breastplate had compressed the flak jacket under the force of the bullet. Even experienced killers like Gaudet in the heat of the moment, and desiring an easy target, often automatically shot for the center of the chest.

As much as he wanted to chase Gaudet, his rational mind told him to stay with the targets, Grady and Michael, or risk losing them forever.

He lifted Michael back onto the gurney, and Grady rolled it back down the hospital corridor. It was still quiet; one would never know that a half-dozen bodyguards were chasing a madman through the bowels of the hospital.

One of Sam's men from upstairs ran to Sam and stopped.

"If you find him. Kill him," Sam commanded.

"Roger that." And the man was gone.

They took Michael to his room, where nurses swarmed him, checking the sutures even before the doctor arrived. Dr. Ayala's death had produced many somber faces. Soon the off-duty guards began congregating and Sam began with the new instructions. Grady showed no emotion whatsoever and Sam knew it was a tour de force of self-control that would end when the danger was past. When the last of the guards was in place and Yodo had returned from a fruitless search, Grady stepped out of the room. Sam followed and found her sobbing against a wall. Without waiting for good-byes Sam walked her to the elevators and out to the front of the hospi tal, where he hailed a cab and took her to her room at the Copacabana Palace. Safe at the hotel, she still had a bit of a strange look in her eyes and there was terrible bruising on her neck. When he nudged her to take a shower, and he tried to close the bathroom door, she started crying. When he opened it, she clung to him-and so he waited for what seemed a half hour, just holding her. This time when he closed the door, she took a shower. When she had donned new under wear and a T-shirt, he crawled, fully clothed, in bed with her. Wrapping his arms around her back, he held her tight and taught her to breathe in her nose and out her mouth-slow, regular deep breaths. Then he told her things that Grandfather had told him when he first knew him. He told them as Grand father had told them to him as best he could remember them. Then Grady slept.

Baptiste walked through London's Heathrow Airport to the location where he was to meet Rene. It was like a rat maze and didn't have the open feel of the tall-ceilinged de Gaulle International Airport. The smells from the abundant restaurants, which according to Baptiste ranked among the worst in the world, forced him to breathe through his mouth.

He met Rene at the gate to the flight to Turkey.

"Are you getting anything out of Benoit?" Rene asked without preliminaries.

"She's cooperating. I think she's dribbling out the information. I'll see her again soon. Have you found Bowden's location? Confirmed that he survived?"

"Neither, though I can't imagine the shots killed him. I'll tell you, if Sam and his people spy as well as they fight, we'll never find Bowden now."

"Don't let the admiral hear you say that. I'll expect a re port when I return from Turkey. Make sure you learn some thing."

"Shall I use Meeks?" Rene asked.

"No. Stay away from Figgy."

"Why?"

"Because I don't trust him completely."

"But you're basing this Turkey trip on intel he gave you," Rene countered.

"Just do your job."

This was hardly a typical business trip to Turkey. It started with a flight from London to another international airport, followed by a ride in a government car down a highway, followed by a descent into the bowels of a government building in the desert that Baptiste hoped never to see again. When he arrived at the building, he encountered a gate in the midst of a Cyclone fence topped with razor wire. It wasn't as secure as a prison, but, then, when people were brought to this place, they were quickly reduced to physical wrecks and it didn't take much to hold them.

At the gate the guard spoke Turkish. Baptiste shrugged his shoulders, lapsing into English.

"I am a special contractor for the CIA."

"And I am Mickey Mouse." The man smirked. "How would I know this?"

"Because if I lied to your officer, you would make me drink camel piss and send me home a eunuch. That or kill me. Look, Figgy Meeks sent me."

"Why didn't you say so?"

Inside the building they stopped at a desk manned by a sergeant and two guards. The sergeant looked up with a steady, confident stare.

"What do you want?"

"Figgy Meeks, a CIA contractor, said you had a prisoner that I could interview. This man allegedly knows about a plot against the United States."

"We don't allow foreigners here. There must be some mix-up."

"I'll need to speak to your superior officer, then," Baptiste bluffed.

The sergeant stared at him a moment, then went down the hall and turned into a room. In a moment an officer ap peared. Baptiste couldn't tell his rank from his shirt.

"What do you want?"

Baptiste repeated himself.

"I was told you might come. I can brief you. Alfawd knows nothing of significance, as I'm sure you already know."

"I still need to talk with him."

"Please, you are not the CIA. You are the French. So go to hell."

Baptiste felt a wave of fear and anger. He pulled his gun and stuck it under the officer's nose.

The sergeant jumped up and pulled his gun at the same moment the two guards leveled their M-16s.

"I am from the C, fucking I, fucking A. I am on contract. Figgy Meeks, retired agent of the CIA, was told by the di rector of the CIA to send someone here. If you want to be re sponsible for a bloodbath, you go ahead. I am ready to die. Are you?"

The officer looked to his men, then back at Baptiste.

"Don't think of me as French," Baptiste said, his tone softening. "Think of me as American. I work with Figgy Meeks. Figgy works with a man named Sam. Do you under stand?"

The officer's eyes shifted again. "I have not heard of any Sam."

"I don't believe that."

"I need to call my commander."

"There's the phone."

The officer stepped to the sergeant's desk. He spoke rapid Turkish for a moment, then waited. There was more talk. Then they waited a long time, the officer still on the phone.

"My colonel called the CIA. The CIA called this Figgy. Figgy says to prove you are Baptiste. Jean-Baptiste Sourriaux."

Baptiste was sweating now in earnest. It was fear sweat, not heat sweat. It had finally sunk in-what he was doing here. The Turks were merciless.

He handed his wallet to the officer.

"Still, I am not satisfied," the Turk said at last. "Tell me the number of your office, Mr. French SDECE man."

Baptiste gave it to him.

'Tell me your boss's name."

"Admiral Larive."

The Turk raised his eyebrows.

"The very one," Baptiste said, sweat trickling under his collar.

The Turk dialed.

"I want to speak with the admiral." He looked at Baptiste and seemed perplexed. "They say I need an appointment."

"You will not get through to him like this."

"Tell me, madame," the officer said. "You are familiar with Jean-Baptiste Sourriaux? Could you describe him for me?"

There was a pause while the Turk listened.

"I will hand the phone to him and maybe he can convince you. His manhood depends on it. So, if you don't want him back with no balls, you better figure out a way."

"What does she say?"

"They don't give descriptions of army officers."

Baptiste took the phone.

"Marie, this is Baptiste. You need to tell this man what I look like and what my wife looks like. He has a picture of my wife to compare."

"How do I know it is really you and not a ruse?"

"Ask me something."

"Who does the admiral want to screw?"

"The new office girl. The blonde with a flat stomach and no tits."

"Put him back on."

The Turk listened for two minutes, then hung up the phone and looked to Baptiste. Faster than Baptiste could register it, he'd slapped the gun out of his hand, and two of his men had grabbed him from behind. The officer's expression remained impassive.

"If you ever pull a gun on a Turk again, I'll have you flayed alive." He nodded at the men, who released Baptiste. He put Baptiste's gun in his desk, then sat in the sergeant's chair. "We have already broken Alfawd. It was not a pretty sight. You can ask him whatever you want and he will tell you. He will suck your dick or give you his daughter if you want."

Baptiste nodded.

"Now get out of my sight."

The soldiers escorted Baptiste down two flights of stairs and past agonized graffiti on bare concrete walls into the bone-dry, gritty hell of the lower level. It smelled of blood and excrement even before they reached the small, miser able cells. Alfawd was a spindly little man with his shirt off; he was covered in caked-on blood. Unfortunately for him, he had been convicted of corrupting Turkish officials in high places. Some of them would be tried and thrown in jail forever, while the luckier ones would skate. The Turks were angry at the instruments of their own corruption, and one of these instruments was chained naked to a chair and muttering about the afterlife.

In the presence of two Turkish "investigators" and an Arabic translator, Baptiste was allowed to ask anything he wanted. The electrodes were still connected to the man's burned testicles.

"You know a man who calls himself Gaudet, Girard, Jean Valjean, and a host of other names, and who probably has French citizenship under some other name, and who is ru mored to live in Quatram, and who was rumored to have lived in French Polynesia? You know this man?" Baptiste spoke in French and the translator restated it in Arabic.

Then the translator came back with the answer: "I have met with others and a man like that. I don't know if it is the same man."

"He has some science that works magic on people's brains. You know about that?"

"I have heard."

"What did you hear?"

"Not much. That he has a clever plan called Cordyceps. I have told this all before. I don't know much."

One of the guards flipped a switch. The man bounced off the chair, arching his back and screaming in Turkish, saliva foaming at the mouth. He urinated a trickle onto the seat. As a conductor it exacerbated his misery until the guard stopped the flow of electricity.

Baptiste flinched but only slightly. Alfawd choked and moaned incoherently.

"You need to tell it again, but with more details. Last time you left things out," the Turkish interrogator said. "We will need to wait a couple minutes. He will be confused now and incoherent." They all sat as if they were waiting for a bus. For the Turk it was all in a day's work.

"Tell us now about Gaudet."

"This man you are calling Gaudet had a beard, wore a hat and sunglasses even though it was indoors. There was no way at all to tell what he looked like."

Alfawd stopped for the translator and then the translator proceeded. "His body seemed normal, maybe five feet ten, but he was always sitting in my presence. He did not move. You could not tell his age, he was in the shadows, he spoke very quietly, and you had to strain to hear."

"What is Cordyceps?"

"Some sort of disease or fungus. It kills bugs by eating th em inside out. It is what he is going to do to the United States."

"How?"

"I don't know. That was for later. But the stock markets of the world would collapse. Prices would drop. He could not kill the United States forever, but for a while they would be hurt. Crippled."

"How were you and Gaudet to make your money?"

"Precise details, I don't know, but we all know that you can make money if you can predict ahead of time what the world financial markets will do. The exact execution of it, we were not yet told."

"When is this to happen?"

"I don't know. We were to hear next week. I invested."

"How much?"

"Three million. The minimum. Others invested more."

"What exactly did you invest in?"

"It is like… what do the Americans call it… I cannot explain it. I am a little guy. I go with Habib and he under stands. You put the money somehow in things that do good when America does like the beetle."

"Habib got you into this? You invest in what Habib in vests in?"

"Yes. That is right."

"Who is Habib?"

The man rambled about a rich Saudi family that didn't in terest Baptiste.

"Who else invested?"

"Other Saudis mostly, people with big money, one Lebanese man, a couple of Turkish men, and an American."

"American?"

"Yes. He was of Iranian descent but born in America with many connections in the Middle East. He seemed very involved and the plan had something to do with computers, and of that I am certain. And then it had to do with this brain science. This American had lost a lot of money in the stock market and was hungry to make it back."

"Why were you meeting? Why get everybody together?"

"Some of the others, the Saudis and the American, they knew more than I. They were not believing so much about the science. They wanted proof. And so Gaudet, Girard, whatever his name is… told them he'd give them proof. There was a man who worked for governments. He is like a man hunter, maybe a terrorist hunter, and some of these in vestors, they are afraid of him. So they say to use this sci ence of the brain to kill him. And Gaudet tried this but did not succeed. So then he says he will use it on a company in stead. A pharmacy company. Make the executives start killing each other. He promises this."

"Just to prove to these investors that the technology would work?"

"Yes. And I believe it will."

The questions continued for a half hour, but Baptiste learned nothing more of substance, just rumors of Gaudet's exploits, many of which he had already heard, none of which were confirmable, and none of which really mattered. Alfawd, as might be expected, knew nothing of the details of the brain science. Baptiste was about to leave when he thought of another question.

"Did they talk about any other investment opportunities?"

"No. But the American told me privately that there was."

"Why did he do that?"

"He needed loans and I was going to lend him some money. He was desperate to convince me, but still he would not tell me details."

"What about these other investment opportunities?"

"He said it was in medicine. He said Gaudet was trying to get hold of something that would be like making gold. It wasn't this brain technology, not exactly. Maybe related, though. It had a name. Chaperone. A very valuable item."

Barely able to contain his excitement, Baptiste ques tioned him further, but Alfawd revealed nothing more, even when electrocuted until his heart stopped.

Baptiste left in a hurry. No reason to test the hospitality of the Turks. The same words kept moving through his mind, unbidden: Markets. Investment opportunities. And last but not least: Retirement.

Baptiste walked from his office down Gambetta, turned up Rue de Tourelles, until he was satisfied that he had no ob vious tail; then he hopped a cab to the Saint Jean-Baptiste de Belleville Cathedral, where he took a stroll through the main sanctuary and then various hallways, then out a side door to a nearby restaurant. He made his way inside the eating es tablishment to a familiar public phone with good privacy ex cept for people passing to the rest room, and these did not remain long enough to overhear a conversation.

"Are the Americans getting any closer?" he asked Figgy without preliminaries.

"Of course. They have Bowden. What I don't know yet is whether Sam has gotten with him in narrowing down the various samples he sent to Northern Lights."

"Will Sam share this with you?"

"I think he will, and I don't think he'd lie to me. But I'm pretty much at an impasse with Sam until he talks with Benoit Moreau. I told you this."

"That won't work. I want Chaperone in my hands before anyone talks with Benoit," Baptiste emphasized.

"What happened with Alfawd?"

"Nothing. He knew that Gaudet wanted Chaperone and that Gaudet figured he could make money with it."

"The Americans aren't going to trust me after this Alfawd business. Sam will be furious," Figgy speculated.

"Make it sound like an innocent mistake. We were closer to Turkey, so you decided to send us. He was in South America."

"Don't be ridiculous. He'll know I was pandering to you and screwing him. It's not complicated."

"You've known him a long time. He may forgive you."

"Back to the money. How much will Chaperone be worth?"

"I have no idea. A lot. I can envision a heated negotiation between our buyer and the French government. France has the better legal claim, but they will negotiate a cheaper li cense if someone else has it as well. We sell to the high bid der in any case, but on a completely confidential basis," Baptiste theorized.

"Nice words. I hope it works."

"It will work. And you will get a handsome fee even if all we do is succeed in delivering Chaperone to France. I need your reaffirmation that you are committed to this," Baptiste prodded.

"Oh bullshit. Once I say I'm in, I'm in. You don't need me to repeat on a weekly basis that I'm going to screw one of my oldest friends."

"Just be sure you're the first one to get to Bowden's jour nals. Update me daily. In text. You understand?"

"Type. Type. Type. What a drag," Figgy complained.

Sam flew home while Michael continued to recuperate in an anonymous safe house in Rio with Yodo, Grady, a team of security men, and a sizable contingent of local police, whose job was to hunt Gaudet if and when he came back after Bowden. They went over the security rules and reaffirmed that Bowden would not be without his security for any rea son. It seemed to Sam that Gaudet was like a building wave, every day his strength grew and every day he became more deadly. More to the point, he sensed a certain measure of desperation in Gaudet's acts, an aspect of the man that was utterly familiar and more than a little problematic.

The plan was for Sam to go to LA first, then meet Grady and Bowden in New York City. Sam's LA offices were the best place on the globe for him to direct the hunt for Gaudet. Still, for a few moments he tried to forget about Gaudet-his obsession-and let his mind rest. He drove down the free way in the dead of night, feeling the Blue Hades, his Corvette, and its power, the way it rolled over the pavement, the sus pension stiff, the turning responsive, the torque awe-inspiring- flawless-everything fine-tuned. He wondered if Grandfather had ever felt the poetry in anything mechanical. Probably not. An absurd thought, really. A few moments in a sliding turn at the racetrack could never touch his soul the way sit ting with Grandfather at Universe Rock had. And yet the sliding turns were good.

He approached the massive outside door of his new LA offices buried in a gated building complex that was largely an office building and data center. Sam put his face up to a camera, aligning his brow with a molded piece of plastic. A computer identified his retina while a plastic pad transmitted his fingerprints to a different portion of Big Brain's memory. Within a split second Big Brain matched the finger to the eye and let him in. Inside, it was very close to the old office in layout, except slightly more spacious.

Harry was all over the place, dissipating his considerable excitement by sprinting around the office and culminating in a flying leap into Sam's arms. He tried to lick Sam's face, but for most of the strokes Sam held him just out of reach.

Jill started right in. "Important news, in case you haven't heard. A massive, fatal shooting incident at the offices of Northern Lights Pharmaceuticals. Two employees went berserk and started killing colleagues. No official explanation for the violent behavior, but it sounds like the soldier vector all over again. One of the shooters died from extensive seizure activ ity."

"That confirms it, then," said Sam.

"Just before the guy died, the medics got a brilliant idea and gave him a powerful immunosuppressant. It slowed the seizure activity and they figured that if they had adminis tered it sooner, it might have staved off an immune reaction. A carbon copy of the incident with your neighbors."

Sam saw a certain tension in Jill's body.

"What is it?"

"It doesn't matter."

"It does to me."

"It's nothing anyone can help. Gaudet knew where our old office was and now he may discover this office. He just about killed Grady even though she was surrounded by our security. That's new for us as far as I know. And these vectors are so insidious. They rob you of your mind and all you have to do is breathe them and they're irreversible. It's ugly."

"It is ugly. That's why we have to catch him."

"I don't know why the government isn't doing more."

"Don't sell 'em short. Hiring us is something. They've got stuff all over the world and they're working on this. They just aren't telling us. Michael agreed to make himself our bait in New York. And guess what? We're probably the gov ernment's bait."

"Don't tell me that. Should we tell the Feds?"

"Oh, we'll tell them, but it won't help. Saying we think he'll do something is like saying we think Islamic extremists will blow things up. They know that. They just don't know what the hell to do about it, and they're not going to talk about it officially. I'm afraid to turn on the TV news."

"We found a computer worm expert," Jill said.

"And?"

"You should hear it directly. He's under contract with the government to come up with worst-case scenarios."

"Let's get Grogg in here."

Grogg came in, sighing under the weight of his consider able bulk. Sam had offered numerous times to hire the plump and balding man a personal trainer, but his Buddha belly kept growing and the muscle mass kept shrinking. Grogg wore glasses like Coke bottle glass but wouldn't con sider sight-correcting surgery or contacts. Claimed it might ruin the image. Despite Grogg's quirks, Sam was fond of him.

"How goes our computer worm research?"

"It goes in galloping gigabytes."

Jill got Jacob Rand on the speakerphone. His company was called IT Defense.

"For purposes of our analysis," Jacob began, "we've as sumed someone with a lot of money and a workforce of, say, twenty experienced programmers. They'd have to know security. There would be other personnel, network engineers, and the like. We are assuming a lot of money, resources. The attack we envision would require a powerful computer worm that would confine itself largely to U.S. computers and would corrupt data, and in many cases effectively destroy hardware. They would choose a widely used software application. As an example they could use Windows SMB file sharing-"

"You mean like Windows SMB/CIFS," Sam interrupted.

"Exactly. This service is on by default on many corporate installations and a lot of private ones as well. We figure they will discover a previously unknown vulnerability in this or some other common program, a weakness that has never been exploited. They are there and when they find it-bingo! At first we won't know what the hell is happening, because we won't have seen the computers go flat on their ass in precisely this manner.

"The way into a system will be via mail worm mode or an infected Web server mode that can infect a browser. The Nimbda virus demonstrated the effectiveness of a mail invasion for crossing firewalls. It didn't go into a guy's computer and use the address book application indiscriminately. It only replied to incoming mail. It was slow and insidious. A good worm would not waste time mailing to Hotmail ac counts and the like, but instead would limit itself to only cer tain addresses-the ones that inflict the most damage. For example, if it invades a corporation's computer system, it would not send out e-mails to other computers within that system. That way you won't have twenty people all compar ing notes and realizing that they all have the same peculiar e-mail in their in box. The virus only needs to get into one corporate computer to infect the entire corporate intranet. Once in, it just goes from one computer to the next, munch ing the data on the hard drives and/or frying the drives them selves. It would be careful to filter out IP addresses that weren't associated with the U.S. That way the bastards could work from a foreign country with impunity and unharmed.

"We figure in the U.S. there are eighty-five million com puters in businesses and about that many in homes. Using these techniques with the right research, we guess they could get as many as fifty million computers. It would do at least one hundred billion dollars in damage and send the stock market plummeting."

Jacob went on to describe how the virus would systematically destroy a computer system, step by step, and the tech niques it would employ. Sam got the idea quickly and, in fact, had imagined such things himself, just never with Jacob's morbid precision.

"So the upshot," Jacob concluded, "is that a good virus would in the end go through a comprehensive erase routine while it was showing the operator a virus protection screen that indicated an ongoing virus scrub-you feel good while they sodomize your computer. In about a third of the ma chines we examined, the motherboard would also become inoperable."

"So, they really could kill hardware that would take days or weeks to replace?"

"Afraid so."

In the end, though, Sam suspected that it was really the killing of people that Gaudet intended. The computers would be a means to that end.

He took a minute to call Jill's boy, Chet, to talk about fishing, the girl next door, the next big asteroid to pass Earth, the latest German gun, and what they might do next summer on the camping trip. It was good to think about everybody being around next summer.