had to have been gunfire, and several of its windows were shot out.
“Wow.” Randi took a deep breath. “What happened to it?”
Jon shook his head worriedly. “Doesn't look good.”
No one was in sight. They split up, and, weapons in hand, reconnoitered. When they saw nothing suspicious even in the woods, they approached the trashed vehicle.
“I don't hear anything inside,” Randi whispered.
“Maybe Mart's sleeping.”
He reached to try the door, and it opened in his hand as if it had been closed so hurriedly that the latch had failed to catch.
They jumped back, their weapons ready. The door swung back and forth in eerie silence. No one appeared. After another minute, Smith climbed up into the living room. Behind him, Randi aimed her mini-Uzi around the interior, her fierce black gaze sweeping it.
Jon called softly, “Mart? Peter?”
There was no answer.
Jon padded forward across the cramped interior. Randi, her back to him, advanced in the other direction toward the driver's cab. A box of Cheerios, Marty's favorite dry cereal, stood beside a bowl on the kitchen table. The spoon was still in the bowl, as was a puddle of congealing milk. One bunk had been slept in. It was a jumble of sheets and blankets. The computer was on, but opened only to the desktop, and the bathroom was empty.
Randi returned. “No one up front.”
“No one anywhere,” Jon said. “But Marty was here not long ago.” He shook his head. “I don't like it. He hates to go out in public or to risk contact with strangers. Where could he have gone? And why?”
“What about your other friend? The MI6 person?”
“Peter Howell. No sign of him either.”
They studied the silence and emptiness. There was a sense of abandonment. Jon was at a loss and very worried about Marty and Peter.
Randi was peering at the interior, at the bullet holes that had eaten up sections of the walls and destroyed some of the hanging maps. “There was one hell of a battle, from the looks of it.”
He nodded. “My guess is Peter must have had armor sheeting built in under the RV's metal skin. Look at where the shots landed. The only way the bullets got inside was through the windows.”
“And the fire fight obviously wasn't here. We'd have seen signs outside.”
“Agreed. Marty, Peter, or both escaped in the RV and were hiding out here.”
“We'd better search more thoroughly.”
Jon sat at the computer to look for what Marty had been working on, but Marty had applied some kind of password that blocked him. For a half hour he tried to break through. He keyed in the name of Marty's street in Washington, his birth date, the names of his parents, the name of the street where he had grown up, their elementary school. They were all traditional sources for passwords, and Marty had probably used them in the past. But not now.
Smith was shaking his head in discouragement when Randi called out. He turned quickly.
“Look! Now we know who has the serum!”
She was sitting on the small sofa, all long legs and blond dishevelment. As she leaned forward, her blond curls fell toward her eyes, and her pink lips were pursed in thought. He could see her long dark lashes even across the room. Her twill trousers had pulled up a little, and her slender ankles showed above her tennis shoes. Her breasts were outlined high and round under her tight white turtleneck. She was beautiful. With the intense expression on her face, she looked so like Sophia, and for a moment he regretted agreeing to work with her.
Then he pushed it all away. He knew he had made the right decision, and they had to get on with it. “What have you got?”
She had been going through the piles on the coffee table. She held up a copy of The New York Times so he could see the front-page banner headline:
BLANCHARD PHARMACEUTICALS HAS CURE
He crossed the room in three long steps. “I recognize the company name. What does the article say?”
She read aloud:
At a special press conference last night, President Castilla announced that preliminary tests showed a new serum had cured a dozen victims of the unknown virus that is sweeping the world.
Originally developed to cure a monkey virus found in a remote area of Peru, the serum was the result of a decade-long research-and-development program into little-known viruses at Blanchard Pharmaceuticals that was initiated by its CEO and chairman, Victor Tremont.
'We are grateful for the foresight Dr. Tremont and Blanchard showed in investigating unknown viruses,' the president said last night. 'With their serum, we are optimistic we will be able to save many lives and stop this terrible epidemic.'
Twelve nations have placed orders for the serum and others are expected to make formal requests shortly.
President Castilla said he would attend a ceremony at 5:00 P.M. today honoring Tremont and Blanchard at the company's headquarters in Long Lake.
The ceremony will be broadcast around the world….
Jon and Randi stared at each other.
“The article says it was a decade-long project,” he said.
“You're thinking about Desert Storm.”
“You bet I am,” he said angrily. “Nineteen ninety-one. Maybe they had nothing to do with infecting the twelve victims. This is a monkey virus, and we can't be sure it's the same virus that we've been working on, even though the serum apparently cures it. But I've got to wonder. Now they come forward with a serum? Very convenient.”
“Too convenient,” she agreed. “Especially since we know three were cured last year in Iraq and three here just last week. But as far as we know, it's a different virus.”
“Suspicious as hell.”
She said, “You don't believe it's a different virus.”
“As a scientist, it's such a remote possibility that the only alternative that comes to mind is some madman from the company stole it and decided to play God. Or Satan, if you will.”
“But how did the epidemic break out? Awfully good timing that Blanchard happens to have a serum that works on monkeys and apparently on people. How could Blanchard or anyone know it'd break out now, or ever?”
He grimaced. “I've been wondering the same thing.”
They stared at each other in silence.
That was when they heard a faint sound behind the RV. A twig snapped.
Randi swept up her Uzi, and Jon pulled the big Beretta from his waistband. In the cramped RV, they listened intently. No more twigs broke, but there was a light rustle of something moving among fallen leaves.
It could have been the wind or an animal, but Randi did not believe it. Her chest tightened. “One,” she estimated. “No more.”
Jon agreed, but: “It could be a scout sent ahead, the rest watching. Maybe from the trees back there.”
“Or a diversion, and the others out front.”
The sound ceased. There was nothing but the distant traffic.
“You take the back,” he said. “I'll take the front.”
He flattened against the wall next to a front window, inched to the edge, and looked out toward the door and studied the row of used RVs. He saw no movement.
“Quiet back here,” Randi whispered as she scrutinized the woods that formed the back perimeter of the lot.
