Germ

'What's going on?' Allen stood to lean over the top, bumping the table and nearly dumping everything to the floor.

Julia caught the computer and phone, stabilizing them on the table once more. 'Allen! Sit. I'll tell you. He says he's a friend.'

'A friend? Your friend? What's his name, Bonsai?'

'Shhhhh! This isn't Bonsai. Just be quiet and listen.'

Speaking the words, she typed:

> I don't need any more friends.

>  That's not what I've heard.

She read the response aloud, already typing her reply:

> How do you know me?

> I've been waiting for you. I knew you would eventually think to check the airport records. I'm surprised it took you so long.

Allen whispered, 'Is he still going through your hard drive?' 'No, he's just talking.' She wrote:

>  Why did you hack me?

> Just trying to make a connection.

'That's not true,' she said. 'He was digging. I think he realized I was onto him and decided to take another approach, instead of just getting cut off.'

> Ms. Matheson. Your enemy is my enemy. Does that not make us friends?

> No. Who is my enemy?

> Atropos.

'I've heard that name,' she said, but she typed:

> I don't know who that is.

>  The man who tried to kill you, Dr. Parker, and Mr. Parker.

'The Warrior,' Allen said. The words continued:

>  Of all the people who kill for a living, he is the worst.

Julia closed her eyes. It was coming back, who Atropos was. She typed:

> Atropos is a myth.

> A myth that almost killed you.

>  Whoever he is, he's only a hired gun. Are you his employer?

> Atropos is purely freelance.

> Did you hire him?

> No. You know who did.

'What's he mean, we know?' Allen said after she read the line.

'I don't know.'

The answer came over the screen:

> Litt.

'Karl Litt,' she said, her mind racing. 'Goody said his name. We used it in our fake conversation, the one we recorded. They were listening. That may have been the one key phrase they caught. He must think we know more about him than we do.' She typed:

> Are you Karl Litt?

>  Litt hires killers. He does not engage in conversation. He does not have the resources to find you the way I did.

'I don't know,' she said. 'He seemed to find us in Knoxville without any problem. Either this guy doesn't know Litt's capabilities, or he just wants us to think he's more powerful than Litt.'

> How do I know you don't want us dead as well?

>  Ms. Matheson, I've traced you to your computer, which means I know the cell phone number you're using. I could have simply remained silent and sent people to your location.

'Except that I realized he had hacked me. I wouldn't have continued using this phone.'

'But what if he hadn't rooted through your hard drive?' Stephen said. 'Couldn't he have found the number you were calling from without your ever knowing?'

She nodded. 'He might have thought he could get away with both—getting a traceable number for us and finding out what's on my hard drive. But we caught him, so now he's trying to say what a stand-up guy he is.'

> So, friend, what is your name?

> It doesn't matter, just that we can help each other.

'I don't trust people who won't say who they are,' she said. 'All right, then . . .' She moved her fingers over the keyboard and punched in a series of commands. She stopped and leaned back. 'Let's see how you like that.'

'What did you do?' Allen asked hesitantly.

'I sent a worm back to him,' she answered with a smile. 'Right now it's rooting its way into the other computer. And it's sending data back to us.'

'Like what?'

She shrugged. 'Letters, address book data, financial information— the kinds of things people keep in their computers. The first thing it looks for are program registration records. They usually contain the name and address of the computer owner.'

A box floated on the screen, showing the quantity of data her worm had pulled in from the other computer. The number grew larger as she watched. She typed:

> How can we help each other?

Nothing. Ten seconds. Twenty. Then the number in the floating box stopped changing.

'He cut me off.' Her fingers moved over the keyboard.

>  You there? Nothing. 'He's gone.'

'You shouldn't have hacked him,' Stephen said.

'Why not?'

'He said he could help us.'

'And what makes you believe him?'

'What he said, that he could have just sent people after us.'

'We don't know he didn't.'

She rebooted the laptop with plans to run a spyware-detection program when it was up again. She didn't want something lurking in her computer she didn't know about.

'Who's Atropos?' Allen asked.

She shook her head. 'A fantasy. Supposedly he's the world's best assassin. He can hit anyone, anywhere. Never fails. Always gets away.'

'He didn't get us,' Stephen said, defiant.

'Yet,' she said. 'Most assassinations don't happen the way they do in the movies. They're rarely clean, quiet kills. Sometimes it takes four or five attempts to hit the target, over days or weeks. Of course, getting them on the first attempt is best; later they're on guard, probably got some beefed-up security. It gets tougher. Then again, the assassin learns more about his target with each attempt. Patterns and weaknesses. So as long as he doesn't give up until the job is done, he's considered successful.'

'Why did you say he's a myth?'

'Maybe legend is a better word. The stories about him get wilder every time you hear them. He's killed dictators protected by armies. He's been credited with killing someone in Asia and then, within an hour, killing someone else in America. The story goes, he comes from a long line of assassins. In the eleventh century, an 'Atropos' helped Frederick Barbarossa seize control of the Holy Roman Empire. Six hundred years later, Elizabeth Petrovna of Russia was found dead in her bedchamber; despite the official explanation of a sudden illness, some historians claim she was assassinated by a man named Atropos. During World War II, Atropos claimed Allied spies, politicos, and important industrialists as his victims. Just some spot examples I remember. Besides the name, each succeeding assassin shared one trait: he killed with a spiked gauntlet.'

'Oh, man,' Stephen said. 'You're creeping me out.'