and thick, deep red blood flowing onto the floor.
In horror Grady saw the gun aimed at her belly. In that moment she knew who he was.
'Dios mio.' Michael sighed. He understood it as well.
'Please go through that door.' Gaudet directed Grady to get behind the gurney. Tentatively she pushed it; it rolled easily. 'This is going to be a mess here.'
Gaudet had the gun to her back and there was nothing she could do. 'Don't say a word. You understand?'
They rolled into another room that opened into a back area filled with strange-looking machines. Grady's mind flashed around the place, looking… thinking… how to escape. Having Michael on the gurney was like having her in shackles. Doorways, a hall, a gun at her back. Think, think!
They proceeded out of the next room and into a hall, ap parently having circumvented the main workroom where the others waited. There were several doors off this hall, but only one was labeled. It was in Portuguese and Grady couldn't understand its meaning. Grady guessed it was another lab, or perhaps a back door.
'In there,' Gaudet said.
Inside were three treadmills and IV stands alongside each. It was some kind of physical-fitness testing area.
'Put your hands behind you,' Gaudet said.
Instead, she looked around desperately, trying to imagine some way of escape, some salvation. Anything. But there was nothing.
'If you don't do it, I'll cut your face.' A metallic sound, and she saw his razor-sharp knife.
She put her hands behind her and felt the cool steel close over her wrists. She felt herself starting to cry but stopped the tears knowing it would only incite Gaudet.
'See there, Michael? She's already imagining what I'll do to her and I haven't even told her yet. See the fear in her face? You could save her from great suffering.'
'What do you want?'
Gaudet took a cord from his pocket. One end was tied with a hangman's noose.
'I carried this just for you. All that time we were walking from the room to the elevator and then from the elevator to here, I was playing with it in my pocket, waiting for the mo ment when I would slip it around your neck. Back up,' he said to her. There was a wall and there were hooks on the wall for lab coats. He put the noose around her neck and drew it taut until it bit into her neck, constricting her airway. Next he was tying something and then he lifted her and it choked her again. Her eyes felt as if they were filling with blood. She fell back. Again he tied the line and lifted her. This time it remained taut.
'Stand on your toes.' Pushing herself up, she could just breathe. Sharp pains cut through her feet as she struggled to keep the noose from tightening further. She had to remain on the balls of her feet or suffocate.
'Don't hurt her,' Michael said. 'Tell me what you want. Be rational.'
Gaudet spoke quickly and without emotion. 'You discov ered some organic material and sent it to Northern Lights. They in turn sold it to Grace Technologies. It had a profound effect on the human immune system. You understand what I'm saying, don't you?'
'I've heard about this substance, yes. And I believe it came from my work in the Amazon. But I collect thousands of samples each year. I have no idea which one worked in this way.'
'Come, Dr. Bowden. You can do better than that.' The knife tip bit into Grady's cheek. Blood trickled down to her neck.
'Depraved bastard,' she said, through clenched teeth. 'Don't tell him.'
'Stop!' Bowden shouted. 'Northern Lights showed special interest in a freshwater sponge. Maybe that's what you need. I first located it in 1998.'
Gaudet seemed not to hear him. 'You've heard how rape terrifies women, haven't you? It's nothing, nothing, compared to what a woman feels when you start cutting her face.'
'I just told you what I know.'
'Keep telling.'
'I found it in a deep water stream in the Yavari Reserve. Six days' fast walk from a point about thirty miles above Angamos. The coordinates are in my 1998 journal.'
'Where is the journal?'
'On its way to Cornell University.'
'You understand how that doesn't help me, don't you?' The steel was back at Grady's face, the point working its way into her flesh.
'Tell him something.' Michael plead with Grady.
'Raval,' Grady choked out. 'A man named Raval.'
'What about Raval?'
'A Grace scientist. He may know how the m-molecule w-works,' Grady sputtered.
'What molecule?' Gaudet demanded.
She quit talking.
'Tell him,' Michael said again.
'It's Chaperone.'
'Do you know about Chaperone?' Gaudet asked Mi chael.
'I heard about it from Grady's associate. Robert Chase.'
'Oh, is that what he calls himself now? Well, Chaperone is merely a word. Make it more than a word.'
'I would if I could. I don't understand it,' Michael con fessed.
'Mmm-hmm. Do you want me to cut her face or her body first? Which will it be?'
'We're telling you everything we know.'
Gaudet ripped the buttons down Grady's blouse and the yanking motion choked her. Grady lost her footing and struggled. The ceiling was starting to move. As the rope bit into her neck, she began gagging and couldn't stop. It felt as if her eyes were going to explode.
'Well, look at that, she's going to die.'
His words were echoing now and she knew he was right. Her feet wouldn't support her and her legs were giving way. She felt her bladder go and the urine running down her legs. Then her body was hanging. It felt separate from the rest of her, quivering as Gaudet's hands touched her and his voice moved in circles like the ceiling.
'She pissed herself.' She realized that Gaudet was prop ping her feet under her. In a few moments her legs supported her, but she was still on her toes.
'This can be terrifying as well,' Gaudet was saying. 'Hitler slowly hanged his errant generals repeatedly with piano wire. Doesn't your girl deserve better?'
Ignoring the pain in his leg, Michael rolled off the gurney and lunged at Gaudet. The look on Gaudet's face was grati fying, but a terrible thought entered Michael's mind. If he took down Gaudet, Grady would hang unsupported and suf focate.
Gaudet smiled as if reading his mind. Then the door be hind Michael burst open. Michael fell clumsily to the ground, white-hot pain shooting from his leg up his spine.
Robert Chase stood in the doorway.
Gaudet was backing away, his gun aimed at Grady, who was beginning to choke as the rope tightened. Robert moved swiftly to Grady to stop her strangling. Gaudet fired a single shot at Robert, then vanished out the door.
The bullet knocked Robert to the floor, and Grady began to choke again. Miraculously, Robert jumped back up and untied Grady, who fell into his arms. Her voice was barely more than a rasp, but Michael thought he heard her moan, 'Sam.'
Yodo entered, then ran out in the direction of Sam's nod. Sam closed up Grady's shirt and held her in his arms, but she pulled away and knelt over Michael, her eyes drawn to his leg.
The leg hurt and blood was seeping through the ban dages, but Grady had stopped crying, indeed she was smiling at him, and that was all that mattered to Bowden.
Sam forced his mind away from the pain in his chest where the steel breastplate had compressed the flak jacket under the force of the bullet. Even experienced killers like Gaudet in the heat of the moment, and desiring an
