they were pretty potent, but they’ve been losing ground to newer fanatics. They may even have dispersed. In any event, there doesn’t seem to be a connection between the hotel and this group. They may have staked out the hotel looking for Kegan.”
“What about with UKD or the people who took Dean?”
“Nothing yet.”
“All right,” said Rubens. “I’m going upstairs. Update me if you get anything new.”
“We will.”
When he reached his office Rubens was still debating whether he might be best off going home and sleeping. He had just lifted the blanket from his desk when his external phone buzzed.
“Rubens.”
“This is Dr. Lester over at CDC.”
“Doctor, good morning,” said Rubens. “I’m afraid we don’t really have anything new yet. If you care to check back in a few hours—”
“I have something new, something important,” said Lester. “We have two people sick in an upstate New York hospital with an undiagnosed disease. It has some flu symptoms, but it’s accompanied by what look like bruises or welts to the body. One of the internists thought it was
“E. coli?”
“I don’t think that’s a good bet myself. They’ve looked at Coxsackie B virus as well, but the tests haven’t come back. Many times these sorts of reports turn out to be overblown. Personally I’d think it was just random food poisoning except for this: one of them is Achilles Gorman, the BCI investigator who was handling the Kegan case. And the other is one of the crime-scene people who went over Dr. Kegan’s house. Both men have run fevers over one hundred and five. It doesn’t look good for either of them.”
24
Dean heard birds — thousands and thousands of them.
Pigeons, cooing.
They fluttered into the air, then landed again.
Cooing, a short flight, cooing.
He woke up and found himself sitting on a park bench, head hanging backward on his shoulders. It hurt when he raised it; his eyes couldn’t focus — the world had gone gray. He started to get up, then stopped, feeling his face. The sunglasses were perched at the very edge of his nose; he took them off, breathing slowly, regaining his consciousness. A clock began to gong in the distance. It was 7:00 P.M.
Dean slid his head down beneath his knees, letting the blood rush in, waiting out the fog in his brain. He adjusted the glasses but said nothing, unsure whether he was being watched or not.
Pigeons flocked nearby, attracted to the crumbs thrown by an elderly woman at the next bench over.
He got up, still unsure where he was, and began walking to his left. A large group of people were gathered at the intersection of two paths, listening as a tour guide described the significance of the statue at the intersection. Dean began to move to the left when someone bumped into him so hard he spun back and knocked into someone else; together they fell down.
Dean adjusted his glasses, listening as she spewed out a long string of German at the woman, whose expression indicated she hadn’t a clue what Lia was saying.
“I apologize,” said Lia to him. He could tell she wanted him to act as if he were a stranger.
“It’s all right.”
“Did you drop that?”
He looked at the ground. There was an envelope. He picked it up, turned it over. There was handwriting on it, Lia’s:
YOU’RE BEING FOLLOWED.
“I don’t think it’s mine,” he said, handing it back.
“It’s not mine,” she said. He tucked it in his pocket. “You’re American?”
“Yeah.”
“You live here?”
Dean pushed the glasses, waiting for someone to say something in his ear.
“No,” he said finally.
“Oh,” she said, as if losing interest. She turned to go.
“Wait.”
Dean caught her arm. Lia turned at him and gave him a look that would have withered a mugger.
“I, uh — want to get some coffee?” he asked.
“No thanks,” she said, smiling and shaking her head.
He watched her start away, not sure exactly what he was supposed to do. Then he decided to act naturally, as if he really were trying to pick her up. He loped after her and grabbed her arm from behind.
She swung around, her arms pulled back defensively, an inch short of flattening him.
“Look,” she said loudly. “Leave me alone. If you want coffee, you go get it yourself. There must be a million coffee shops on that boulevard where you can pick up some lonely tourist. Get out of my face.”
Lia swung around indignantly and stalked off.
She’s good, Dean thought to himself.
Then he realized that her tirade had drawn the attention of others nearby. He held his hands out apologetically.
“I wasn’t trying to pick her up or anything,” he said.
Half of the dozen or so people nearby nearly choked with laughter. The rest looked as if they might take him on themselves.
Dean ambled in the direction that Lia had given him. He found a coffee bar but realized he had no Euros, only a few pounds and dollars. He went back toward the comer, where he had seen the outside kiosk for an ATM. As he reached into his pocket for the wallet, he found the envelope Lia had dropped. There was an address in the left- hand corner—27 Sitzung.
Sitzung was the name of the street he had just crossed.
He stuffed the envelope in his pocket and went through with the transaction, withdrawing fifty Euros. He walked back along the street, looking for 27. Just as he reached number 25, two men came barreling out of the doorway, yelling and cursing as they shoved each other. Dean tried to avoid their fight, pushing toward the building as a siren sounded down the street. Two men nearby ran up to stop the brawlers, but this only resulted in a bigger tangle, and Dean had to duck quickly to escape being bashed. As he spun around, a hand grabbed him and yanked him into the building. Before he could say anything, a hand slapped itself over his mouth.
A woman’s hand. Lia’s.
Dean felt her pull off his shirt, tugging at his buttons. He helped her, sliding out of it, and doffed his shoes as well when she pointed at them. She pushed him down the hall, where a man in a suit was waiting near a doorway. Inside, Dean found himself in the fitting room of a tailor.
“God, you’re thick,” said Lia, coming in behind him. “If I didn’t have half the embassy working for me, you’d still be out there.” She shook her head. “Being tracked by a bag lady, no less.”
“My clothes were bugged?”
“I just like seeing you naked.”
