Germ

Litt jumped. In his fury, he had not noticed the mousy Dr. Rankin standing on the other side of the room.

"His heart's beating too slowly," Rankin said. He was wearing a green surgical gown, tied at the waist, and a matching cap, which had hiked up high on his head and roosted there like a mascot. As he spoke, he poked a syringe through a medicine ampoule's rubber stopper and withdrew a careful measure of clear liquid. He turned to a wheeled cart of instruments, set down the bottle, and held up the syringe to expunge it of air. "He's developed dyspnea. BP's down to 70/50. This atropine should take care of—"

Litt rammed a bony shoulder into Rankin's back. The doctor tumbled into the cart, spilling its contents to the floor. He hit his head on the wall and sat down hard.

"Are you mad?" Rankin said, more shocked than angry.

"In fact, Doctor," Litt said, leaning over Allen, one knee on the cot, "I am extremely mad." He leaned over Allen. "How did they know? Who told you to come? Where is the—"

"Do you have film on him?" Speaking to Dr. Rankin now. "Where is his film?"

Rising, rubbing his head, the physician pointed at a large envelope clipped to the cart.

Litt removed a thin sheaf of X-rays and held the first one up to the light. He dropped it and examined the next, then the next.

"There," he said, pointing. It was a small, crisp oval of bright white among cloudy gray shapes. "In his upper intestines." He dropped the X-rays. "Ten-to-one it's a tracking device." He bent and picked up a scalpel off the floor.

He grabbed a handful of Allen's jumpsuit at the navel and slashed at it. He pushed his fingers into the tear and ripped open the material, exposing Allen's stomach. He positioned the scalpel just below the belly button.

Hands gripped his shoulders and yanked him back. He spun to face Rankin.

"The man is almost dead. Be . . . civil, please!"

Litt's wrath surged over the physician like ink. "Do not interrupt me! Ever!" He lashed out.

Rankin stood before him, vibrating like a struck piano chord, eyes wide behind prescription glasses that reflected back the alien orbs of Litt's own black lenses. His mouth froze in the form of a perfect O.

Warmth over his skin caused Litt to peer down. The hand holding the scalpel was half hidden by a fold in the doctor's surgical gown. Blood formed a scarlet glove up to his wrist and poured from the bottom of his hand to the tiled floor, the first great globule landing as he watched. He had plunged the scalpel under the man's sternum, upward to his heart.

A squeal, nearly inaudible at first, issued from the little circle of mouth, rising in volume and pitch as Litt studied a magnified tear quivering on one of the doctor's bottom lids. He pushed the scalpel deeper. The tear fell. The squeal stopped. Litt released his grip, and the body crumpled to the floor. He stepped back, holding his dripping hand away from his side. His eyes rose to the body on the cot. Taking Rankin's life had drained much of the emotional frenzy out of him. What did it matter if the tracking device remained where it was? Parker's brother and the woman had already followed it here. The damage was done.

He stepped into the hall. No one was in sight. He reentered the room and straddled the corpse, placing his feet wide to avoid the blood. He bent at the hips and knees; an observer would have thought Litt intended to kiss the dead man. Instead, he paused inches from the face. He cocked his sunglasses up to examine the now waxen visage.

The right side of Rankin's glasses had skewed upward in the fall, leaving his right eye naked. It was dark brown and nearly lashless, and Litt marveled at its glazed quality, as if dulled by the dirty thumbprint of Death. Then he realized that the glazed eyes of the dead—endowed by poets with wisdom and otherworldly sorrow—were caused by dryness, nothing more. The sparkle they lacked was moisture, not the essence of life.

Disappointed, Litt let his glasses fall back in place. He dipped his fingers into the bloody pool. He rose and moved to Allen's side. Locking his vision on the gaping face like a pickpocket watching his mark for the slightest sign of suspicion, he smeared the blood over Allen's right hand. He covered the front and back and had to return to the pool twice to complete the task. He used the limp hand like a brush to smudge the khaki prison jumpsuit. He also ran the hand down the side of Allen's face.

Allen's one useful eye fluttered open. He sucked in a wheezing breath.

"Litt," he said. "The cure."

"Who sent you? Does Kendrick know?"

"Cure . . ."

"It's here, my friend. Do you know what it is?"

Litt scanned Allen's face: sweaty skin, ash gray; quivering lips; bloody gums. The eye, though—conscious and aware. He'd seen it before, as if the mind were the last to give in to the disease.