Germ

killed, you gotta let me hold it, man.'

Vero placed it in Donnelley's palm.

'Is this a camera memory chip?'

'Like it, but much higher density.'

Donnelley closed his fingers over it. 'You want this to get in the right hands, you gotta let me have it.'

Their eyes locked.

'I'll take care of it.'

Vero nodded.

Donnelley dropped it into the inside pocket of his jacket. 'But if I find out the only thing on it are pictures of your family reunion,' he said, 'I'll come after you.'

Vero smiled weakly and turned away.

Donnelley glanced at the police-band radio. It dangled from its bracket under the dash, torn open and gutted. Looks like I feel, he thought.

They'd been driving a long time when Donnelley saw the sign that marked the Georgia-Tennessee border. Given the tenacity of their assailants, he half expected another attack: a fiery ambush or even sudden death from a military-type strike—an Apache attack helicopter or a LAW rocket, maybe. He wouldn't put anything past them after the barrage they'd just let loose on him and Vero.

Time to pull over and let Julia catch up. If he didn't get to a hospital soon, his life would simply drain out of him. But the prospect of letting his guard down on an operating table without someone he trusted standing over him was more nauseating than the lack of blood. Besides, if he was going to die for something, he wanted to make sure it got into the hands of the good guys—whoever they were.

Where I-75 branched east, Donnelley went west, onto I-24 and into the heart of Chattanooga. Green hills rose around them, and a humid, musky aroma of honeysuckle filled the car. For the first time in over an hour, he smelled something other than his own blood. He glided into an exit lane and found himself on Belvoir Avenue. Turning east on busy Brainerd Road, he spotted a good place to stop and cranked the wheel into a nearly deserted parking lot. He edged the war-torn sedan into an alley behind a brick building and killed the engine.

He stretched slowly, carefully, testing for aches and discovering which movements caused spears of pain from the wound. He found renewed strength, slightly, in having something to do. He shouldered the door open, the twisted metal popping and screeching. As he stood on shaky legs, he examined the rear of the building: lined with back doors, as he expected. He hoped the one he wanted was unlocked so they could slip in without being exposed to the main street. 'Let's go.'

'Go where?'

'A bar, my man. A dark, inconspicuous, everybody-minds-his-own-business bar. Last one in buys.'

nine

The car was too close to the building for Despesorio Vero to open his own door, so he brushed away pellets of glass and clambered out the driver's side, staying high to avoid the crimson-drenched seat. Lots of blood, smelling like raw meat.

He got out of the car in time to see Donnelley disappear into the building. When Vero followed, he entered an office-cum-storage room. Boxes marked pretzels, Margarita mix, and napkins formed makeshift half-walls between steel shelves, file cabinets, and a desk barely visible under a heap of papers and magazines. Donnelley was apologizing to a man in a filthy smock and pushing through another door with a porthole window.

Vero caught the door swinging shut and saw another door closing on his right. A dingy emblem on the door depicted the silhouette of a little boy peeing into a pot. The rest of the bar was equally drab and tasteless. Dim bulbs behind red-tasseled lamp shades barely illuminated each of a dozen maroon vinyl booths, which marched along one wall toward the murky front windows. Chipped Formica tables anchored the booths in place. Opposite the row of booths was a long, scarred wooden bar with uncomfortable-looking stools. Behind the bar, sitting on glass shelves in front of a cloudy mirror, were endless rows of bottles, each looking as forlorn as the folks for whom they waited.

He caught the strong odors of liquor and tobacco smoke, and the weaker scents of cleaning chemicals and vomit. In one of the booths, two heads bobbed with the movement of mug-clenching fists. A scrawny bartender with droopy eyelids picked his teeth with a swizzle stick and chatted quietly with a woman seated at the bar. Otherwise, the place was empty.

Vero walked into the bathroom. Donnelley was lifting his shirt away from the torn flesh in his side. He was cranked around, trying to assess the damage in the muck-spotted mirror. To Vero, he looked like an expressionist painting in which all the objects were the same color of too-vivid red: the shirt, the hands holding the shirt, the belt passing through pant loops. At the center of it all was the thing that corrupted its surroundings with its own gruesome color—a wound. The cut was crescent-shaped, its edges smooth. The flesh around it swelled before tucking into a finger-sized hole. While Vero watched, blood gushed out, flowed to the lip of the pants, and pooled for a moment before seeping in and dripping down.

'Oh,' Donnelley groaned. 'This is a bad one.'

He pushed his index finger into the wound up to the first knuckle and growled through gritted teeth. When he pulled his finger out, it made a wet, popping noise. He fell to one knee, threw his head back, and sucked in air. Vero could hear the man's teeth grinding. Above the crimson mess, Donnelley's face was white as bleached bones.

He gripped the sink to pull himself up. Vero helped him. Donnelley turned on the water, doused his hand, then studied it. His thumb flicked at something on the tip of the finger he'd used to probe the wound. A long and deep cut. Blood welled up within its borders, then spilled out.

'That wasn't there a minute ago,' Donnelley said.

Vero leaned closer. 'Something's inside you? Something that slices like that?'

'Reckon so. Get me some TP.'

Vero didn't understand but followed Donnelley's pointing finger to the tissue roll by the exposed toilet. He unraveled a wad. He leaned in to apply it to the wound.

'No,' Donnelley said, stopping him. 'Give it to me.'

He stuck the wad in his mouth and bit down. He reached back with his left hand and jabbed the tips of his index finger and thumb into the hole, wiggling them to make room. He groaned, coughed, fell to his knees. His probing fingers wiggled farther in.

Vero held Donnelley's shoulders and stared in disbelief.

Donnelley yanked his hand back, holding something solid. He spit out the wad of tissue. His panting echoed against the walls of the small room. Perspiration coated his face in fat, runny droplets. Vero gently pressed another wad of tissue against the wound; in seconds, he was holding a blood-soaked clump. He tossed it into the trash and spun off another handful.

With groaning effort Donnelley stood, one arm propped against the sink, eyes closed, his head hanging down. Sweat dripped off the tip of his nose and strands of hair. The rhythm of his heaving chest gradually slowed. He raised his face and stared into the mirror. He looked down at the object in his palm.

Vero tried to identify it, but a pool of gore obscured its shape. 'A piece of the car door?'

Donnelley shook his head. He stuck the object under the flow of water. Pink bubbles churned in the basin and vanished. He turned off the water, shoved a clump of tissue into the drain, and dropped the object into the sink. It made a metal clink! then rattled thinly before sliding to a stop against the tissue.

It was black steel, the size of a dime. From its outside edge, three grooves spiraled slightly inward, forming three sharp teeth. A small hole pierced its center.

'What is that?' Vero asked.

'A flechette,' Donnelley said matter-of-factly, his voice raspy. He spoke through clenched teeth. 'I've read about 'em. Soldiers used something like it for trench warfare.'

'Those killers had these in their guns?' Vero was more angry than astonished.

'Probably—' Donnelley's breath hitched, his face contracted in pain.

The man's ability to behave in an almost normal fashion despite the gaping wound in his side was astonishing.

'Probably had a dozen or so packed into each shotgun shell. They'd tear a man to shreds. The car door slowed this one down before it hit me.' He rolled his head in a circle, took a deep breath. 'At the Academy,' he said,