the bacteria and Dr. Hamid’s relatively primitive lab complicated matters. The colonies were growing only about half as fast as his models suggested they would.
“It is slower than we hoped,” said the scientist finally. “But it will do.”
He turned around and faced Atha. “I should be ready to give the first doses this evening. We’ll have to start slower than planned — just four hundred people. By tomorrow evening, we will be ready for the rest.”
Atha nodded. The delay meant that some of the transports would sit here overnight, but otherwise it was a trivial matter, not worth bothering the minister about. In all but a few cases, the airplanes waiting for them were chartered, and would wait indefinitely. For the others, new tickets would not be a problem. The travel documents, visas, medical certificates, had been prepared weeks ago.
“From now on, you should take proper precautions in here,” said Dr. Hamid. “A full suit. You must decontaminate carefully, wash very thoroughly. Remember, the material is very dangerous.”
“I thought you said as long as I wash I am all right.”
“If the bacteria gets into your mouth, it will enter your digestive tract. From that point, there is no stopping it.”
“I will be careful,” said Atha, deciding that he would simply not visit the laboratory again.
“Once we are ready, I would advise you not to eat or drink anything, either. Bottled water that you yourself handle, nothing else. The juice should be an incredible medium for the bacteria to grow, and I do not doubt that infection will be very easy. Remember, it is more potent than common E. coli. There waste is the main means of transmission. Here any fluid, even sweat, may make the transmission. A swimming pool, food, a washcloth, can become a medium of transfer. The bacteria is extremely virile. The professor was quite a genius.”
“I have no doubt,” said Atha.
“We should leave as soon as the distribution is complete,” said the scientist. “The longer we stay, the greater the risk of infection.”
Atha nodded. The final phase of the plan called for them to travel to northern Iran, where Navid would prepare additional cultures for storage and possible future use. Atha would look after his financial affairs, and take a vacation, assuming the minister did not have other plans.
The Revolutionary Guards were not universally appreciated in Iran, and Atha realized that the minister’s overt power play might elict a strong response. Atha was unsure exactly what the minister was planning, whether it would be a real coup or simply a putsch behind the scenes. Either way, Atha would be prepared, with money in several overseas accounts as well as Iranian banks.
Assuming the minister paid. Like anyone with power, he was not entirely to be trusted.
Atha took his leave of Dr. Hamid and went back to the hut that served as his quarters. He turned on his laptop computer to see that the minister had forwarded the payment to his accounts.
The money had not yet gone through.
Atha rose from his desk. He tried not to jump to conclusions — there must be an explanation.
And if there wasn’t?
Then he would send his hordes to Tehran rather than Europe and America. There the devastation would be considerably greater, as the sanitary conditions in the poorest areas were terrible.
Atha sat back down, calming himself. It must be an error, he decided. He considered whether it would be wiser to talk to the minister by phone or to send him an instant message. Messaging him had the advantage of letting Atha craft what he would say. But the phone would bring an instant response.
Could he hold his temper on the phone? Perhaps not.
Still debating, Atha signed into the message service. There were several unread messages — including one that claimed to be from Dark Bear: Rostislawitch’s code name.
An old one, Atha thought, scrolling through the others in queue. But then he realized that it had been sent only a few minutes before.
Most likely he’s wondering what happened to me, thought Atha, selecting it to read:
You have taken the suitcse. I was afraid you were not honest. As a precaution, I kept the phalange vrs necessary to convert DNA. The price is now twice, and two EU psprts. In Tripoli at the Alfonse Hotel this evening. I est virus will survive for another 24 hs…
The message was so long it spilled into two screens. A second text message added Web sites explaining the science.
Atha jumped out of his chair to get Dr. Hamid.
10
As soon as the text message was sent, Ferguson had Corrigan send two more cars of Marines to the computer cafe.
“Go to the navy base. Get over to Tripoli,” Ferguson told Thera as he pushed her into the car after Rostislawitch. “Wait for me.”
“What about you?”
“I have an errand to run here.”
“Ferg—”
“I’ll see you in Tripoli.” He hesitated, then leaned forward and gave her a kiss on the cheek. Then he banged on the top of the car. “Get going; go,” he said, backing away.
The narrow street went straight up the side of a hill so steep that much of the sidewalk had been laid as steps. A worn metal pipe rail protected the street side. A good number of the storefronts had been converted into cheap apartments; the rest sold mostly secondhand items: books, clothing, even used plumbing. Above the stores were more apartments, their inhabitants a mixture of poor immigrants and young people who styled themselves bohemians and frequented the basement cafes that lined the block and the nearby avenue.
Ferguson crossed the street and forced the door on one of the buildings, trotting upstairs to the top floor. Seeing that there was no door up to the roof, he opened the window on the landing and found a fire escape ladder; it ran up as well as down. In a few seconds, he was walking across the roof’s sticky tar to the front of the building, where he had a good view of most of the block.
Someone had brought a beach chair up. It was weather-beaten, but it was better than sitting on the tar. Ferguson carried it to the edge of the roof and sat down, feeling a little like he was at a baseball game.
Not the Sox. No one ever got a quiet seat like this at Fenway.
He peered over the side, watching the street. He shouldn’t have kissed Thera, he thought. It was a distraction and a mistake.
But now that he had, what was he going to do next? What was he going to tell her? That he loved her?
The truth was, he played the rogue so much that being honest felt strange. He wasn’t even sure how to phrase it.
He didn’t need anything else.
What he couldn’t say was,
Maybe not. The doctor seems pretty positive. Most people with thyroid cancer live.
Of course, usually it was caught a bit sooner. Usually it didn’t come back. You could read the statistics any way you wanted.
Ferguson remembered he’d forgotten to take his pills that morning.
He reached into his pocket for his pillbox. A cab was just driving up the street. He slipped down near the edge of the roof, lying flat. A woman got out of the taxi, a blonde.
Ferguson rose and began trotting back to the fire escape.
Kiska brushed past the attendant and walked through the long, narrow room, surveying the patrons at the computers lined against both walls. Rostislawitch wasn’t among them.
