Germ

his brother's body, pushing his face into his chest.

Stephen hugged him in return and watched the EKG monitor. The rate was slow but steady. His vision blurred. He blinked away his own tears; they seeped into his beard and tickled his face.

'What happened?' Allen asked, the words scraping over his vocal cords like pebbles. 'Where was I?'

Stephen squeezed him tighter. His hands and arms felt too much of Allen's skeleton. He said, 'Maybe heaven, little brother. But heaven can wait for you. I got you now.'

Allen pushed back to look into Stephen's eyes. He touched Stephen's face, as though ensuring himself it was real.

Stephen was stunned by the way Allen's cheeks and eyes sank into his skull, accentuating his cheekbones and jaw. A large rip at the waist of his clothing showed pale skin and a shrunken stomach. He must have lost twenty pounds in the three days since his capture. Finally Stephen's eyes broke away and settled on a bowl of water and a cloth beside the cot. He dipped the cloth into the water and dabbed at Allen's face. The blood washed away, but the tears—constantly replenished— seemed more permanent.

Allen returned to the comfort of his brother's chest. Stephen's arms cocooned him, warming, comforting, protecting. Allen slumped as tension waned and fatigue took hold.

'I thought we'd lost you,' Stephen whispered.

An explosion rocked the room. The wire mesh over the light came loose on one side and swung down. Somewhere down the corridor, glass shattered.

Carefully he lowered Allen back onto the bed. His eyes were wide and darting. Stephen had heard that a side effect of adrenaline was short-term hyper-alertness, followed by a crash that comatosed some patients. The alertness could help get Allen out of the compound; they would worry about his crashing later.

He pulled another ampoule out of his shirt pocket, one he'd found earlier: atropine, which would keep Allen's heart rate up and work with the adrenaline to energize him.

He scooped up another syringe, loaded it, and plunged the needle into Allen's arm.

'This'll help,' he said soothingly.

Walls shattered in another part of the complex. The sound reverberated through the corridors, which were becoming thick with smoke and dust. He realized that the explosions were infrequent now and sporadically placed —if his own judgment in such matters could be trusted—as if they were probing for something.

'You're doing fine,' Stephen said, tossing aside the syringe. He hoisted Allen up, slung him over his shoulder, and stood.

He made only one wrong turn getting back to the exit. The door was locked. Beside it, a black pane was set in the wall. The man who had led him to Allen had put his face up to one like it. He held his own face in front of it, moved it around, tried the door again. Still locked.

This far . . . for nothing.

He had not seen anyone else on this level. The chances of people hiding out here—or of his finding them if they were—were about the same as surviving the bombs pounding overhead.

Then a memory struck him—so full of potential, he held his breath while his mind gnawed on it.

It could work.

He eased Allen down next to a wall. 'I'll be right back. I gave you a heavy dose of adrenaline. You all right?'

'Hmmm.' Allen raised his eyebrows to show he was. 'Feeling . . . a little better.'

Stephen took off along the corridor, into air that had taken on the murkiness of pond water. When he returned, Allen rolled an eye at him and grimaced. Behind Stephen, dragged by one foot, came the corpse from Allen's cell. It left an intermittent swath of crimson. Stephen scooped up the body and maneuvered its face into position in front of the glass panel. He turned the head this way and that, backed it away and drew it near. The noise of the explosions escalated. The tremors became quakes. The smoke thickened and stung their eyes.

He laid the body down in frustration, not sure what else to do.

Allen spoke. 'Thermal.'

'What?'

He said it again.

Stephen looked down at the corpse, wondering where mere disrespect became sacrilege. He straddled the body and began rubbing the face. His hands engulfed it. He was able to stroke all of it simultaneously, from forehead to chin, ear to ear. His thumbs stayed on the bridge of the nose, moving from between the eyes to the tip. He rubbed as vigorously as he dared and tried not to think of the flesh beneath his hands: the chin scratchy with light beard stubble; the lips catching on his palms, the bottom pulling down, the top snarling up, each flipping back on the opposing stroke; the forehead sliding sickeningly over the skull.

He heaved the body up and held the face before the black pane. A bolt inside the door clicked. Gently, he lowered the corpse.

He bent Allen over his shoulder and stepped through. He wondered if another thermal face reader awaited them at the top of the stairs; he turned and held the door with his foot before it could close. He leaned through, got a grip on the dead man's foot, and pulled the body into the stairwell. Then he headed for the surface.

ninety-five

At one time, the air base must have housed a good-sized army, Julia thought. Three rows of Quonset huts were arranged in a grid, with dirt roads running between the rows. A large field and the airstrip separated the Quonsets from a single row of five airplane hangars—now ripped apart and burning. Whatever function the Quonsets once served—barracks, infirmary, mess hall, armory, chapel, administrative offices, warehouses—today they were rusty scraps, like half-buried barrels.

Julia crouched low beside one of the Quonsets, trying to guess the current position of the three assassins who chased her. She assumed they had split up, as they had done in Pedro Juan Caballero. She crept to the edge of the building, peered around. One of the killers was three Quonsets away, boldly strolling her direction, his head cocked to look between each building as he passed. She sprang out, running for the next row. He spotted her, raised his pistol. She squeezed off a round, then another. He didn't dodge away. As far as she could tell, he didn't even flinch. Then she was out of his sight and running full-force to the end of the building. Her plan was simple: lead the Atroposes far away from the stairs, then double back, find Stephen, find Allen, and get out of Dodge before the killers caught up with them.

Or before the bombs pounded them all deep into the Paraguayan soil for archeologists to find a hundred years from now.

She hadn't seen a plane or an explosion for a few minutes. The last one she spotted had been an FA-18 with U.S. insignias—her father had built model jets and she recognized the twin tail fins. It had swooped low without releasing its ordnance. She wondered if the air strike was over. Could its sole intention have been to disable any getaway aircraft? Would the commando team she had hoped Kendrick would send now arrive?

She had reached the opposite corner of the array of Quonsets from the stairs. It was time to circle back around. She had seen only one Atropos since running from them when they first converged on her. That made her more nervous than if they had stayed on her tail. It dawned on her that she had not seen anyone in the past five minutes. The people escaping the base had drained through the gate and were gone. What she wouldn't give to be with them, Stephen and Allen at her side.

She clutched her pistol and ran back along the front of the first Quonset. She stopped at the corner to inspect the space between the buildings, then darted across. She tacked around a stack of wooden crates that leaned against the half-moon facade. Bulging burlap sacks squatted beside it like fat trolls. She crossed the next gap and then ran to the back of the building.

Her progress was slow, but finally she found herself at the rear of the Quonset with the stairs. She came around the corner in a strobe-like dance of deadly efficiency, swinging her pistol toward the door . . . the arching roofs . . . the crates . . . the corners of the buildings . . . She reached the front, kicked through the door, and moved into the stifling darkness. Her pistol covered the near corners . . . the far corners . . . the overhead beams. She stopped, listening.

A plane approached, followed by explosions—dozens, maybe hundreds of them. They didn't sound like the kind of bombs planes dropped, but smaller, like hand grenades. Still, she heard metal ripping and felt the ground