Germ

'You have a better idea?'

Stephen turned to Julia. 'You're FBI?'

'Sort of. Like a division of it.'

'Can we go there?'

Allen jumped in. 'I told you, I'm not going to—'

Julia held up her hand to stop him. 'Yesterday morning, I would have said there wasn't anyone in my agency or the Bureau I wouldn't trust. Now I don't know. What I do know is someone highjacked a satellite signal that's supposedly impossible to highjack. At least one, maybe two, hit squads are in play; they're not being discreet and they're not afraid of killing federal agents. At least two of them were probably cops, so whoever hired them has connections within the law enforcement community. All of this may have something to do with a man-made virus, which means either terrorism or the military. It's hard for me to imagine that the government isn't involved in this at some level. The muscles that are flexing are way too big to be private.'

'The media, then,' Allen said, leaning back, vindicated.

'I don't think so,' she said. 'I agree with Stephen. Unless you have hard evidence to support your claims, no reputable news agency will come near this. Your connections might get you lunch and a pat on the back, but that's all.'

She raised her hand again to halt Allen's objection. 'I'm not saying this isn't a huge story, but to newspeople, your saying that it is doesn't mean squat.'

It was clear to her that Allen was not accustomed to being contradicted. The flesh on his face seemed to harden. His tight lips pushed out a bit, sliding back and forth slowly, as though he were working on a jawbreaker. His eyes bore into hers, unflinching. He'd obviously perfected this countenance of wrath to a degree that caused nurses, med students, and even colleagues to acquiesce rather than endure the gaze.

She leaned into it. 'Contacting the media now will do nothing but tell our pursuers how much we know and where we are.'

'The killings,' he said. 'The condition of Donnelley's body, his words . . .'

'Just words,' Julia said, firm. 'And nobody heard what he said but you, right?'

'You don't believe me?'

She hesitated a beat. 'I do, because Goody told me some of the same things. And I'm not the media. You'd have to convince some pretty jaded people whose livelihood depends on checking and double-checking the facts. Even if they were to give you the benefit of the doubt, they'd keep the story under wraps until they investigated, until they were sure. That would give the people after us time to do what they probably do best: silence nosy journalists and their informants.'

Allen blinked slowly. He was listening.

'Going to the press would put the spotlight on us, not them. Of course, you could sell the story to one of those grocery-store gossip rags. It'd be right next to a feature about the three-headed pig-boy who ate his neighbor.'

His facial muscles relaxed. A slight twitch at the corner of his mouth formed into a shallow smile. This seemed to signal a kind of forgiveness of her insubordination. He glanced around, as if realizing for the first time where they were. He nodded. 'So where does that leave us?'

Julia looked at Stephen, his big hairy face open to her, anxious for an answer. She moved her attention back to Allen. He was more cynical than his brother, more cocksure, even now when he was scared and unsure.

'Where that leaves us is alone.'

thirty-nine

'So what do you suggest?' Allen asked.

She returned his gaze for a time, then turned her head to stare vacantly at the sidewalk beyond the patio's perimeter. Feet clad in various forms of shoes strode across her field of vision, but her mind registered none of them. Their situation was like a hole, into which she tried to fit a myriad of solutions. As idea after idea flashed into her mind, she'd size it up, hold it next to the hole, discard it for the next one. After a minute she looked up.

'Evidence. Whatever we eventually do—go to the media, go to the cops—we need to bring evidence. I have something from Vero, memory chip. It may be all we need, but it's encoded. I may have fixed that, but until we know for sure, we should turn over a few rocks, see what we find.'

'We're going to investigate?' Allen's voice was high with disbelief.

'Have to,' said Julia, distracted by the plan forming inside. 'I can pull some info off of various data banks, find out what the Bureau knows, maybe the status of the investigation in Chattanooga. That may lead us to more clues, more avenues of discovery. We don't know yet what we're looking for exactly, but that's how all investigations.

start. Before you know it, the pieces fall together, and you have enough to make a case.'

'Where do we start?' Stephen asked, ready.

'I'm thinking.

'Well, no matter how you cut it, we're on the run,' Allen said. 'I've never been on the lam before, but I imagine it can get expensive—food, transportation, hotels.'

'And no credit cards,' Julia said. She'd obtained her new car this morning from a rent-a-lemon place that accepted an extra fifty bucks and photocopies of her driver's license and LED creds in lieu of a major credit card. Now she was almost out of cash, and she hadn't considered where she would get more without leaving a paper trail.

'How about this?' He nodded at a business across the street. 'That's a branch of a bank my dad uses. We called him this morning. He arranged a cash withdrawal in Stephen's name. I don't have my ID. We get the money, go somewhere, decide what to do.'

'You've thought this through,' she said, impressed.

'Leave it to Allen to nail the money angle,' Stephen quipped.

'Speaking of which . . .' Allen's eyes made a sweep of the dishes.

Stephen pulled out his wallet and dropped two bills on the table, a big grin pushing away the hair around his mouth. 'Allen sans cash,' he said. 'I never thought I'd see the day. Be right back.'

He stood, stepping back from under the umbrella to avoid pushing it up by his towering height. He stepped over the patio's railing into the blazing sun. He squinted in one direction, then the other, waited for a car to pass, and jogged across the street. Julia marveled at the gracefulness of his movements.

'I need to make a call,' she said. She tossed her napkin onto her plate and stood, pulling the gym bag up by its strap. 'I saw a phone inside.'

'I'll go with you.'

'Suit yourself.'

She tugged open the big French door that serviced the restaurant and stepped in. Over her shoulder, she said, 'I'm only calling my mother. You don't have to—'

Then she saw him: crossing the street, as though he'd been watching them from a nearby storefront, and he'd seen Stephen go into the bank. Everything faded away. She saw only him, moving as if in slow motion, letting a car pass, darting behind it. Straight for the bank.

'What? What?' Allen's words sounded muffled, far away.

Jet-black hair, sticking up in spots. Thick-framed glasses. Tall and muscular.

'Julia, you're pale as a ghost.'

She pushed past him, back onto the patio.

'Allen . . .' She pointed.

The man was standing in front of the bank's front window, peering in.

'What? I . . .' Allen started, then: 'That looks like . . . I thought you said he was dead. You said he got blown away. That can't be him.'

'It is him. That's the guy I saw the cops kill last night.'

Her hand went to her pistol. It rested on the handgrip as she watched the assassin pause for a woman exiting the bank. He slipped into the space behind her, and the glass door closed. He was inside.