Germ

"And information: who knows what."

"Julia and I, we looked at the chip data. That's all."

"Your brother?"

Allen rolled the back of his head against the wall: no.

"See? You're lying. How can I trust you now?"

"What do you want?"

"Kendrick Reynolds. You know him?"

"The billionaire?"

"Have you spoken to him or his people? He would not have hidden behind anybody, not for something this precious to him. He would have enticed you with his fame. Did he contact you?"

Allen waited to answer, then said, "I don't know what you're talking about."

"Did he get the chip?"

Allen did not reply.

Litt's voice rose. "Does he know where I am?"

Allen held on to his deadpan expression. Did Kendrick know? It wasn't part of Vero's data, except the few scenes of the air base and the jungle beyond, and to Allen they'd seemed anonymous and ambiguous. If the tracking device was working, Julia and Stephen knew where he was, but did Kendrick?

Litt said, "I could care less what else he knows. If he's not already aware of Ebola Kugel, he will be soon. If he's not already aware of my plan to use it on American soil, he will be soon. All I need to know is: does he know where I am? That's all. Whatever your answer is, convince me it's true, and the Ebola virus eating your insides will go away."

"I don't know."

"Does the chip reveal my location?"

He did not reply.

Litt stood quickly. He brushed off his lab coat. "Think about it, Dr. Parker. Your pain can end whenever you want." He rapped on the window panel in the door.

"Litt," Allen said.

The sunglasses rotated toward him.

"If there's any chance this Kendrick guy has found out where you are, why don't you leave?"

"I need to know, Dr Parker. This is my home, my laboratory, everything to me. You understand?"

Allen remembered the list from Vero's data chip, and he finally understood its terrible implications. He wondered if all those people were already infected. Were they only now starting to feel not quite right, or did they feel the pain he did? Were they frightened, as he was? They were husbands, wives, and children. Brothers, sisters, parents. So many people affected. So much grief.

He said, "I saw your list of names." He tried to look hard, challenging. He suspected the only thing he conveyed was illness. "Why so many?"

The door rattled and opened. Litt gripped the edge. "Movies," he said.

"Movies?"

"They've desensitized us. One death, ten deaths are no longer interesting. Ten thousand deaths will get their attention."

"You've never studied Stalin?"

Litt raised his chin.

" 'When one person dies, it's a tragedy. When a million people die, it's a statistic.'"

"Dr. Parker, I don't think any parent will think of the death of his or her child as a statistic, do you?"

After a moment, he gave a satisfied nod and left.

eighty

The five-hundred-mile trip from Sao Paulo to Ponta

Pora took more than six hours, thanks to TAM Transportes Aereos's scheduled stops in the backwater towns of Mailia, Presenente Prudenti, and Dourados. At each tiny airport, the pilot and one flight attendant would disembark to share a soda and a few apparently hilarious jokes with the ground crew, while the copilot hurled rocks at mangy dogs. A handful of Brazilians, most looking tired or drunk, would shuffle off as their indistinguishable replacements shuffled on. At any given time, the thirty-passenger turboprop boasted a manifest of half that number.

The sky grew grayer with each stop, and each time the plane was in the air, the attendant would give a dramatic presentation describing the deluge assaulting the western edge of the state, where Ponta Pora lay. Upon leaving Dourados on the last leg of the trip, the weather outside the plane made her warnings superfluous. The plane pitched and rolled like a kite caught in a blustery wind. Two passengers became sick, filling the cabin with the pungent odor of illness. Julia and Stephen closed their eyes, gripped the cracked vinyl armrests and each other's free hand between them.

When they finally landed in Ponta Pora, the early afternoon sky was as dark as dusk. Sheets of heavy rain sliced down at an angle, seeming to undulate in the waning light. It beat so fiercely against the metal skin of the plane, Julia knew the engines had stopped only when she saw the propellers winding to a rest and the other passengers standing and gathering their belongings. As the cabin lights came on, Stephen's reflection appeared behind hers in the Plexiglas window.