Germ

No, you don't, but what you're thinking is better than the truth.

'Do you want me to call Homecare?'

'Don't be silly. I'm fine.'

'I'll call tomorrow, then. You know the number if you need help?'

'I do, but I won't.' Being stubborn now.

'I love you, Mom.'

'Love you, honey.'

She cradled the receiver and held on to it. She wished things were different. But who didn't? She sniffed, ran the back of her hand over her eyes, got in the car.

Before she arrived back at the motel, again her mind started grinding through the day's events, transcribing conversations, forming questions, following leads. She felt overwhelmed by the number of fragments of information to sift through. Her experience had taught her that while all the clues available might not lead to a solution, they always led to another clue. Eventually the solution presented itself. The next clue was somewhere among the known facts; she simply had to find it. She was overlooking something.

Goody said Vero was talking about a virus . . .

Looking, thinking, trying to understand . . .

twenty-three

The glowing red dot of the laser lingered on the tree an instant, then slid off and continued its sweep over the cemetery.

Allen hunched down on folded legs beside a massive bush, majestically draped in silky leaves and bejeweled in fat berries. Slowly he turned to look in the direction of the laser's origin. The bush blocked his view of the assailant's passage—and concealed him from his pursuer.

He heard the soft crunching of footfalls moving leftward as he looked up the hill. The assailant was coming down at an angle that allowed a controlled descent, not on the steep course Allen had barreled down. Most likely he was tacking, trying to stay as true to Allen's course as possible. Then he came into view on the left side of the bush, sixty feet away. A dark figure that seemed too angular and moved too fluidly to be human. No matter where he walked, he remained a shadow, black upon black. Only the bright red point of the pistol's laser sight at the tip of his right arm broke the inky monotone of the night.

The figure turned and strode toward him, rising and falling with the crests and depressions of the insane landscape. Mist swirled in his wake, spiking upward, then settling like flames.

Allen nearly bolted for the edge of the cemetery, where the hill continued its descent back to civilization. For a quarter of a second his muscles contracted, ready to spring. Instead, he inched under the bush, sliding his legs along the ground to avoid jiggling the leaves. He bent himself into a crescent and pushed his torso under the perimeter of the plant, using his hand to gently push the leaves over his hip and shoulder.

The assailant stopped ten feet from him, miraculously still in deep shadow. His body faced the shrub under which Allen shivered, but his head was rotating back and forth, scanning. Allen held his breath, hoping his body didn't scream for oxygen too soon, as it had in the hall outside his bedroom. The fierce shadow figure stood there, emitting a sound Allen couldn't place—

Chick-chu, chick-chu, chick-chu . . .

—and scanning, listening . . . twenty seconds . . . thirty . . .

Allen's chest hitched as his lungs started to protest.

. . . forty . . .

The man spun ninety degrees and strode toward the edge of the cemetery.

Gasping air as quietly as possible, it came to Allen that it was frustration, not discovery, that had motivated his pursuer's aggressive approach toward the shrub. The man had realized that his prey could be anywhere in the woods, or even out of them by now.

Allen lifted a branch out of his way and parted his knees slightly so he was looking through them at the assailant. A black shadow against the darkness of the nocturnal woods. It was as though he had brought the shadows with him, had cloaked himself in a darkness that no light could penetrate. Yet the figure's physique was obvious. Muscular arms, legs, chest. Tall. Powerful.

From the way the man's head was moving, Allen guessed that he was scanning the woods below the cemetery. Then the figure turned around.

Allen heard a soft metallic click, and the laser flicked out. The figure marched toward him again, taking wide strides that quickly closed the distance between them. He stomped right past Allen, hit the uphill edge of the cemetery, and began the ascent toward the house without slowing. Thirty seconds later, the woods consumed the sound of his passage.

Fear kept Allen from moving for a long time. Finally he slid out from under the bush and stood. He looked uphill and saw nothing but black trees, bushes, leaves, and vines advancing toward his house, disappearing into the night. He stared at individual shadows, trying to find one that was man-shaped, hoping he wouldn't. Shades shifted subtly, by wind, not man. When his unblinking eyes began to tear, he lowered his head, cupping his face in both hands.

His body ached with a hundred cuts and bruises. His heart hurt from riding so high in his throat. The strong stench of his own perspiration was nauseating. His mind threatened to fold into itself.

Then he was over it.

He lifted his head toward the leaf-obstructed sky, inhaled deeply, and resolved to fight, to win, to live. He ran his palm over his side, brushing off dirt and leaves and little twigs that had embedded themselves into his skin. He ran his fingers through his hair, dislodging debris. The act of standing and squaring his shoulders made him feel less like a kicked dog. He made his way to the other side of the cemetery, then stepped down the slope to begin the trek off this mountain. He picked up speed as he descended, crashing through branches and bushes.

By the time he was halfway down, a plan had begun to form. When he saw the first glimmer of electric lights through the trees, he knew what he was going to do.

twenty-four

'Evidence!'

Julia said it out loud to the empty motel room.

If someone wanted to warn the CDC about an impeding bio-attack, wouldn't he bring some kind of evidence to prove he wasn't a nut?

She thought back to her last conversation with Goody. He'd reminded her that their communication was not secure. He'd said he was injured. She'd warned him of the compromised SATD signal. He'd said he'd turned off the tracking device. Wait. First he had said he was in a phone booth. But why would he have said that? She'd thought he was reiterating the unsecured status of the line, but it wasn't like Goody to state the obvious. And it had come at an odd time, after she informed him of the SATD problem. He'd told her to hold on, had left her hanging for half a minute, then came back with that cryptic message about the phone booth.

That was it! It was cryptic.

I'm in a phone booth.

No. I'm in the phone booth. Okay. That phone booth.

Then he had said it again. Emphasizing the sentence's importance? Yes, but something else . . . something . . .

He had not repeated the first sentence verbatim. No I'm the second time . . .

I'm in the phone booth. In the phone booth.

He'd meant 'It—the evidence—is in the phone booth, the one you will know about if I don't make it back to retrieve the evidence myself.'

That had to be what Goody wanted to say. She knew how his mind worked. Everything fit. Some kind of evidence was in that phone booth, and she was going to get it—as Goody had intended her to— right now. She dashed out of the room, slamming the door behind her.