Germ

Litt rolled his head, exasperated. 'Have you heard a word I've said? Ebola also doesn't seek out specific individuals—but look at you. In fact, Ebola did not exist at all until I created it. Since I intend to use it against my enemies, would knowledge of a cure be something I shared?'

'So why tell me?'

'You have something I want. I'm negotiating.'

'Vero's memory chip.'

'And information: who knows what.'

'Julia and I, we looked at the chip data. That's all.'

'Your brother?'

Allen rolled the back of his head against the wall: no.

'See? You're lying. How can I trust you now?'

'What do you want?'

'Kendrick Reynolds. You know him?'

'The billionaire?'

'Have you spoken to him or his people? He would not have hidden behind anybody, not for something this precious to him. He would have enticed you with his fame. Did he contact you?'

Allen waited to answer, then said, 'I don't know what you're talking about.'

'Did he get the chip?'

Allen did not reply.

Litt's voice rose. 'Does he know where I am?'

Allen held on to his deadpan expression. Did Kendrick know? It wasn't part of Vero's data, except the few scenes of the air base and the jungle beyond, and to Allen they'd seemed anonymous and ambiguous. If the tracking device was working, Julia and Stephen knew where he was, but did Kendrick?

Litt said, 'I could care less what else he knows. If he's not already aware of Ebola Kugel, he will be soon. If he's not already aware of my plan to use it on American soil, he will be soon. All I need to know is: does he know where I am? That's all. Whatever your answer is, convince me it's true, and the Ebola virus eating your insides will go away.'

'I don't know.'

'Does the chip reveal my location?'

He did not reply.

Litt stood quickly. He brushed off his lab coat. 'Think about it, Dr. Parker. Your pain can end whenever you want.' He rapped on the window panel in the door.

'Litt,' Allen said.

The sunglasses rotated toward him.

'If there's any chance this Kendrick guy has found out where you are, why don't you leave?'

'I need to know, Dr Parker. This is my home, my laboratory, everything to me. You understand?'

Allen remembered the list from Vero's data chip, and he finally understood its terrible implications. He wondered if all those people were already infected. Were they only now starting to feel not quite right, or did they feel the pain he did? Were they frightened, as he was? They were husbands, wives, and children. Brothers, sisters, parents. So many people affected. So much grief.

He said, 'I saw your list of names.' He tried to look hard, challenging. He suspected the only thing he conveyed was illness. 'Why so many?'

The door rattled and opened. Litt gripped the edge. 'Movies,' he said.

'Movies?'

'They've desensitized us. One death, ten deaths are no longer interesting. Ten thousand deaths will get their attention.'

'You've never studied Stalin?'

Litt raised his chin.

' 'When one person dies, it's a tragedy. When a million people die, it's a statistic.''

'Dr. Parker, I don't think any parent will think of the death of his or her child as a statistic, do you?'

After a moment, he gave a satisfied nod and left.

eighty

The five-hundred-mile trip from Sao Paulo to Ponta

Pora took more than six hours, thanks to TAM Transportes Aereos's scheduled stops in the backwater towns of Mailia, Presenente Prudenti, and Dourados. At each tiny airport, the pilot and one flight attendant would disembark to share a soda and a few apparently hilarious jokes with the ground crew, while the copilot hurled rocks at mangy dogs. A handful of Brazilians, most looking tired or drunk, would shuffle off as their indistinguishable replacements shuffled on. At any given time, the thirty-passenger turboprop boasted a manifest of half that number.

The sky grew grayer with each stop, and each time the plane was in the air, the attendant would give a dramatic presentation describing the deluge assaulting the western edge of the state, where Ponta Pora lay. Upon leaving Dourados on the last leg of the trip, the weather outside the plane made her warnings superfluous. The plane pitched and rolled like a kite caught in a blustery wind. Two passengers became sick, filling the cabin with the pungent odor of illness. Julia and Stephen closed their eyes, gripped the cracked vinyl armrests and each other's free hand between them.

When they finally landed in Ponta Pora, the early afternoon sky was as dark as dusk. Sheets of heavy rain sliced down at an angle, seeming to undulate in the waning light. It beat so fiercely against the metal skin of the plane, Julia knew the engines had stopped only when she saw the propellers winding to a rest and the other passengers standing and gathering their belongings. As the cabin lights came on, Stephen's reflection appeared behind hers in the Plexiglas window.

'Wouldn't you know,' she said to his reflection. Before leaving Atlanta they had transferred their belongings— a change of clothes for each, light jackets, toiletries, Julia's computer gear—into two JanSport daypacks, khaki for him, olive for her. They'd stuffed the remainder of the cash into the padded shoulder straps. That turned out to be an unnecessary caution; customs officials in Sao Paulo were beyond lax. They gave the packs nothing more than a heft, as if they were so attuned to contraband, they could recognize it by weight alone. Julia wished she'd brought her gun.

Stephen pulled the packs out of the small overhead compartments above their seats and started forward.

Julia reached for hers. 'We're going to have to pull our own weight. Starting now.'

'So don't let me be gentlemanly.' He winked and relinquished his grip.

The attendant was having a hard time holding a grin as rain blew through the door, soaking her uniform and plastering her bangs to her forehead. She swung a hand toward the open door, hurrying them along. 'Adeus. Por favor, va depressa.'

'Adeus. Obrigado,' Stephen answered. He caught Julia's bemused stare. 'There was a language card in the seat-back pocket.'

He ducked through the portal and started down a short flight of rolling metal stairs to the water-covered tarmac and was immediately drenched. Blinking rain out of his eyes, he turned back to see how Julia was faring. She skipped the last step, hopping past him, and darted for the airport door—a lighted rectangle in an otherwise black silhouette of a building.

Inside, she bent at the waist and briskly fanned her fingers through her hair. Big plumes of droplets burst from her head. She said, 'Can you believe this?'

'Can we use it in our favor?' He was appraising the small airport, giving each person a few seconds of scrutiny.

Julia slapped him on the back. 'Now you're thinking.'

He handed her a jacket from his pack, slipping an arm into his own. In the high heat of mid-May Atlanta, they hadn't remembered that it was late fall here. Subtropical though it was, the temperature was in the brisk fifties.