Germ

Julia picked up her pace.

Suddenly from behind one of the other Quonsets stepped Atropos. He saw Stephen and his captive go through the door and started after them. Julia raised her weapon, taking aim at the killer. Another group of people came out the door, blocking her shot. Atropos was almost there. She raised her aim and shot the light fixture hanging over the door.

Atropos spun, backing away as he did, quick as a cat. He pivoted his left arm up and immediately squeezed off a round into a woman who had darted in front of Julia. The people broke into a dance of frenzied activity and hysterical screams. Two more Atroposes came around a corner. They reached their brother and advanced toward her as one. She ran to the side of the Quonset, running toward the rear with all of her strength, hoping they didn't reach the corner behind her too soon.

ninety-four

Heart blockage in the early stages of Ebola infection is a blessing. It saves the patient from the agony of feeling his organs melt away, of watching his flesh blister, swell, and split, of hearing his own screams until his throat wears out or fills with blood and bile. It comes from the same well of good fortune that drowns a man before he is eaten by sharks, or poisons a spy with a capsule of strychnine under the tongue before his enemy breaks out the tongs and cattle prods.

Allen Parker's heart was granting him this mercy—winding down, responding to the Ebola virus, which was attacking and short-circuiting the electrical impulses of his atrioventricular node. His breathing became shallow and labored. But the pain continued. His hands, which had been roaming his body looking for a way to snuff the fires that scorched him in a thousand places, slowed and stopped.

And with each minute, his heart dropped a few more beats, until—

No pain. Just like that, it was gone.

The little man in Stephen's grasp had stopped squirming

and now walked obediently ahead of him. With each explosion—

reaching them as muffled thunder and the trembling of the staircase they descended—Stephen thought he was going to bolt. But they were heading down into the subterranean complex, and the man wanted out of it—a direction Stephen blocked.

At the base of the staircase, his unwilling guide stepped up to a black tile in the wall, and the metal entry door clicked open. The man tugged at it and stepped into a poorly lighted corridor.

Stephen's nostrils flared at the redolence of earth and dust. He looked for signs that the corridor was dangerous, then stopped looking; safe or not, he was going in.

The man marched stiffly until they reached an intersection. He paused and selected the right-hand passage. They approached a door with a small square window showing brighter light on the other side. Before reaching it, they turned down another corridor.

Stephen, his big paw clamped around the back of the man's neck, gave him a shake. 'No tricks.'

'Please . . .' the man said. He pointed weakly in the direction they were heading. Finally he stopped in front of a door.

'Open it,' Stephen commanded.

The man threw back a rusty bolt, turned the door handle, and dropped straight to the floor, out of Stephen's grasp. He rolled away, stood, and ran.

'Hey!' Stephen took two steps toward him, stopped. He looked back at the door. Light from inside sliced into the corridor from a thin breach. He pushed on the door.

A cardiac monitor's C-sharp rhythm of ventricular fibrillation struck him like a bad smell: heart failure on the brink of flatline.

And then the visual assault: a man lying in a near-black pool on the floor, a blossom of blood in the center of his torso. And Allen sprawled on a cot, mouth agape, one eye swollen shut, the other staring blindly at the ceiling.

'Oh no, no, no . . .'

Stephen's heel hit the pool and flew out from under him. His head cracked against the tile. He stared at the caged light in the ceiling, thinking for a moment that he was supposed to see something fantastic in it. Then he rolled his head backward and saw an upside-down version of the doorway and the dark corridor beyond. He rose from the gore, blood clinging to him from his armpit to his knee. He rubbed his head and went to his brother.

'Allen! Allen!' He shook Allen's shoulders, sickened by the way his head bounced limply and lolled to the side. 'No, Allen! Not here, man! Don't give them the satisfaction!'

He aimed his fist at Allen's sternum and administered a precordial thump. The heart responded—slightly. He tilted Allen's head back, pinched the nostrils, and blew twice into his mouth, filling Allen's lungs. He found the base of the sternum and moved up two fingers. His hands nearly covered Allen's chest. He leaned over and pushed down . . . came up . . . pushed down . . . came up—pumping the heart for him. After thirty compressions, again he filled Allen's lungs.

The cardiac monitor fell silent, then beeped. Allen hitched up, gasping for breath, righting against Stephen's hands.

'Yes!' Stephen said and threw his arms around his brother.

Allen went limp. His head flopped back, and once again, the EKG machine took over the job of screaming for help in a sporadic, weak rhythm.

Stephen gave him another precordial thump and restarted CPR . . . two breaths . . . thirty compressions . . . breathing . . . pushing . . . He had to restrain himself from frantically pumping on Allen's chest without rhythm or meter. He wanted to force life back into him. Tears flew from his cheeks, splattering against Allen's bloody face. He pulled in a deep breath, gritted his teeth, and pushed.

Allen heaved up, gasping. Stephen reached behind his head.

'Allen! Stay with me.'

The cardiac monitor beeped . . . beeped . . .

Allen seized Stephen's shoulders and hitched in two sharp, raspy breaths . . . then nothing . . . He fell limp again.

This time, there was no response to the precordial thump. Stephen scanned the room. No defibrillator. His eyes roamed the clutter scattered on the floor: X-ray film, surgical instruments, rolls of cloth tape . . . ampoules of medicine and syringes.

He swung off Allen's cot and dropped to his hands and knees on the floor. He snatched up an ampoule and read its label. Magnesium sulphate 8 mmol. Sometimes used during resuscitation, but under what conditions? He tried to remember. Administering CPR was one thing—kids learned that. Injecting drugs to restart a heart was something else completely—despite being seven credit hours away from earning an MD. Potassium chloride was a good example. Depending on the cause of the heart failure, potassium could either restart it or frustrate efforts that would otherwise work.

He kept scooping up and examining ampoules, hoping a solution would spring out at him.

Epinephrine. Adrenaline!

He found a syringe, loaded it up with the epinephrine, and gently injected the drug under Allen's tongue, which would cause it to work as quickly as an intravenous line. He breathed into him, then rose, his straight arms coming together over Allen's sternum. This time, as he pumped, he did not count. He prayed.

Acutely aware of the heart under his palms, he thought of the life that was slipping away. He remembered Allen the toddler who'd scribbled with Crayons on the walls . . . the eight-year-old who had crashed his bike, knocking out a tooth, and who had run to his brother for comfort instead of to Mom . . . the new teenager who'd shyly asked Stephen what it was like to kiss a girl. . . the young man who'd performed a near-perfect backflip on the living room floor when he received his acceptance to med school—only 'near perfect' because after landing he had crashed down on an antique coffee table, obliterating it. He recalled his brother's face when—

Beep. Beep. Beep.

Allen pulled in heavy gulps of air. His eyes were open, but they were focused on something distant. Tears buckled on his lids, spilled over. He reached out blindly, felt Stephen's face and shoulder, and slid his arms around