Germ

The laptop displayed a menu of the files Julia Matheson had sent him. Kendrick reached for the track pad. He said, "Watch these videos closely. The first one shows a field test of a virus—Ebola." A village with dirt roads appeared on the screen. As a black man stepped out from one of the shacks, Kendrick continued. "Ebola is very similar to the rabies virus. In fact, it was created in the Elk Mountain lab during Litt's tenure."

Jack Franklin nodded, then his brows came together. "Whoa, what?"

Kendrick tapped a key to make the video pause.

"Litt created Ebola?"

"All his fiddling with the rabies virus," Kendrick confirmed. "Trying to make it more virulent, more lethal, faster acting. Before we knew it, it wasn't rabies anymore. It was something new."

"But the outbreaks in . . . uh . . ."

"The first one occurred in Sudan in 1976, after Litt disappeared. Of course, it wasn't called Ebola when it was in our lab. He called it Zorn, or Zorn des Gottes—wrath of God. It wasn't until I saw a slide of Ebola, like an ampersand or G clef in music with a long tail, that I knew Karl was out there somewhere, perfecting his creation, field-testing it."

The president stared vacantly into a dark corner of the room. He had been jarred out of his presidential persona; it was as a member of the human race that he was considering what Karl had done. Kendrick hoped to keep him in that frame of mind, at least until his presentation's coup d'etat. He lifted the decanter and refilled their glasses. The president gazed down at the swirling amber, then brought the glass to his lips. He nodded at the laptop. Kendrick restarted the video.

As Jack Franklin watched the man on the screen succumb to Ebola, a thin film of perspiration broke out on the chief executive's upper lip and forehead. Several times he glanced over at Kendrick, who would nod grimly. The second video began right after the first ended.

Kendrick tilted to one side and fished the meerschaum pipe out of his right jacket pocket. Then he leaned the other way and pulled a small leather pouch out of the opposite pocket. He packed a wad of tobacco from the pouch into the top of God's head, taking great care in tucking straggly strands into the mound. He stuck the pipe between his teeth. He stashed the pouch, withdrew a lighter from the same pocket, and waved a two-inch flame over the bowl.

The video wound to its conclusion, and the menu screen took its place.

"The man at the end?"

The president nodded.

"Karl Litt."

"What happened to him?"

"He was exposed to an early strain of Zorn. It . . . changed him. Whatever it did, it must have been wearing away at his body all these years." He pulled on the pipe, then blew out a billow of smoke, which vanished into an air vent. "We identified the abandoned air base from the second video. And this . . ."

He selected a file. The screen filled with a map of the eastern seaboard, the Caribbean, and South America. He pointed at a red do: blinking over Chattanooga.

"This is a real-time recording of a satellite tracking operation. It's a plane that eventually lands on that airstrip."

"You know where he is."

"One more thing." He called up a map of the United States. A dozen or so areas glowed red. He zoomed in on one of them, which resolved itself into a distinct egg-shaped pattern with map markings in blue under it. "What does this look like?"

"Chicago."

"Look at the red superimposed over it."

The president studied it. The color was blood-red near its center and faded irregularly to a light pink. Freckles of white permeated the entire colored area. The president's eyes flared wider. "It's a . . . blast pattern."

"Except less round."

"Yes . . . yes . . ." He seemed to be having trouble breathing.

"It's a biochemical disbursement pattern," Kendrick said. "The dark red shows the vicinity of the initial release." He touched the mouthpiece of his pipe to the screen. "The shape is defined by estimating wind direction and speed, humidity, obstructions, vector weight, and so on."

The president nodded. Kendrick knew he'd seen such diagrams before, attached to defense budgets, showing hypothetical terrorism scenarios. But one thing was new.

"What are the white dots?"

"Targets," Kendrick answered simply. "Specific targets, specific addresses. Look here." Clicking on the keyboard, he brought up the list of names, addresses, and medical procedures. The data began scrolling like movie credits. Name after name flashed past. "Every white dot on the map represents one of these names. They all fall within twenty geographic areas of the United States."

"I don't understand," the president said, watching the names blur by. "Litt identified his victims by name? Why?"

"To prove he could." He jabbed the pipe between his lips and immediately spat out a short stream of smoke.

"So many . . ."

"Ten thousand. Twenty sites, five hundred per site."

The president jerked his head up as though he'd been slapped. A fiery redness rimmed his eyes. "All Jews?"