Germ

The downpour robbed the Siamese-twin towns of Ponta Pora, Brazil, and Pedro Juan Caballero, Paraguay, of any personality they may have possessed. Everything appeared flat and gray. Lights burned in store windows. Empty chairs and benches squatted on the sidewalks. The storefronts were all narrow. The signs above them appeared amateurishly hand-lettered and in several languages, rarely English— except for a profusion of Coca-Cola and Marlboro signs. In the three blocks they watched, the wagon passed four, maybe five drugstores, their busy windows marked with an odd assortment of symbols: the familiar pestle and mortar, the caduceus, large capsules and tablets, test tubes, even skulls and crossbones.

A steady vibration coming up through the seat and a particular sound told Julia and Stephen what their eyes could not detect: the streets were cobblestone. When tires are on wet pavement, they hiss, like the air is coming out of the world. These tires made a gentle, rhythmic sha-sha-sha—the beat of a snare drum.

"Are we in Paraguay?" Julia asked.

"Oh, yes."

"How far back was the border?"

"Minutes. Just minutes. The big street, Avenida Internaconal. Did you see it?" He motioned behind them.

Stephen remembered a street that was slightly wider than the others, a few blocks back.

"That was border. Nothing. I told you."

"I can't see the difference," Julia said.

"The signs. Guarani and Spanish here, mostly Portuguese there. When no rain, PJC has lots more vendors in the street, no restrictions like Pora."

"So really it's one big town, shared by two countries."

"Eh, not so big."

They wound through the deserted streets for another few minutes, then the driver pulled over. "Good food here."

"Looks like a bar," Stephen said.

Julia opened the door. "It'll do."

Stephen handed the driver the ten and slid out with the daypacks.

The station wagon coasted away, rain making it fuzzy and ethereal. As it began rounding a corner, a gust of wind rippled the rain, and the car vanished.

Stephen smiled at Julia's wet-dog look. "We hoofing it somewhere else?" he asked.

"You got it."

"First hotel?"

"First restaurant, deli, or bar, not counting this one. I really am starving." She took the pack from him and hoisted a strap over her shoulder.

He looked one way, then the other. Both directions looked bleak, abandoned. He lowered his head against the driving rain and started walking.

eighty-one

The call came in on what Gregor thought of as his "informants' line." It was the number he'd given out to airport personnel, cabbies, hoteliers, and restaurateurs in Pedro Juan Caballero and Ponta Pora to report on people asking about Karl, the compound, or missing persons. Most of the calls had been false alarms, the result of overactive imaginations and underfunded bank accounts. He paid a few of these anyway, simply to encourage watchful eyes and loose lips.

This call was different. He realized it as soon as he heard the description of the man and woman. Steven Parker and Julia Matheson. Here. They'd somehow followed Allen Parker. No doubt it was the Matheson woman's doing. FBI. CDC. Whatever. Probably a homing device on the plane.

He thought a moment. "Give me your number." He entered it into his BlackBerry. The government-run phone system was so undependable, it seemed everybody in the region had a mobile phone. Maybe no pot to pee in, but definitely a flip phone. He told the cabbie to keep an eye on the visitors and promised him a big bonus.

He hurried down one of the complex's dim, dank-smelling corridors, passed his face in front of a thermal reader, and entered the laboratory wing. He stood for a moment, letting his eyes acclimate to the area's bright fluorescents. Karl would have his head. What was Gregor thinking, inviting Atropos to the compound? It had exposed them to discovery by people they didn't want visiting. The arrival of Matheson and the brother made that clear. If Karl shot him on the spot, he'd deserve it.

Shoot? Karl wouldn't shoot him; he'd extract his revenge in a more poetic, nastier way. It didn't matter that they'd known each other since childhood. Gregor had jeopardized Karl's life's work. And for what? To meet Atropos. One of the great hit men of the world. Correction—several of the great hit men of the world.

Despite the dire situation, Gregor smiled. What a revelation. To be one of a handful of people who knew Atropos's secret. No wonder he was so prolific, so omniscient. Atropos was not one man but four.

Three now, Gregor thought. The three brothers had asked to be taken to the compound's morgue. Before Gregor had left, he witnessed the opening of the body bag the first Atropos had brought. Inside was another Atropos, grotesquely wounded.

Their grief had been great and wretched.