Germ

"I know. You told Commander Bransford in Paraguay. I am sorry." He looked at his hands, then again at Julia and Allen. "This country owes you its gratitude. Unfortunately, it cannot publicly recognize that debt. We are prepared, however, to pretend none of this ever happened." His eyes locked on hers. "You understand that you must never speak of Karl Litt or Ebola Kugel or the United States' alleged involvement in biological weapons? Where is your laptop, please?"

"It was destroyed on Litt's compound."

Kendrick Reynolds simply stared.

Julia added, "You understand that if anything happens to me or Allen, someone might find it?"

After a moment, Reynolds tilted his head, accepting the arrangement. "When you are ready, you will be given a ticket to Atlanta on a commercial airline."

"I'll wait for Dr. Parker."

"As I said, when you are ready. Dr. Parker, I understand you may be here for another few weeks. We cannot have you treated in a private hospital." He stepped away from the bed. At the door, he turned back. "In my last conversation with him, Karl Litt said something that made me take a closer look at three records on his list of targets."

Julia smiled. "Everyone loves the First Family."

He bowed his head to her. Then he slipped out.

Julia offered Allen a sideways smile. "We're going home."

Allen didn't answer. He was somewhere else.

"What is it?" she asked.

"I don't know. When Stephen gave up on medicine, my family didn't understand. I didn't understand. The way we were raised, there was nothing else. It felt like he was turning his back on his family, his destiny." He shook his head. "But I see now that he had found his destiny. He chose to look outside my parents' narrow vision for his life. He saw a world that was bigger than himself and our family. He saw something other than patients who could provide him with the wealth and prestige our family expected. He saw people."

His voice broke on the last word. He turned his face away, covered it with one hand. He felt Julia's hand on his shoulder, rubbing, comforting.

After a long moment, he continued. "When I was there, in that room in Litt's base . . . when I was . . . dying, I thought about the names we found on your computer, the data Vero had smuggled out. Ten thousand names. Ten thousand people. I thought about their lives and the people who loved them, who tucked them in at night or called them during the day just to hear their voices. I wondered if they were scared the way I was. If they were in pain. I felt for them—not for me, for them. For the first time, I understood what had gotten into Stephen. What he did for people—from that little cabin behind the church, with his crummy car—what he did was so much grander than what I did."

"We need doctors, Allen. It's a noble profession."

"Only when your heart's in the right place. Stephen understood that. He went off and did what he should have done for the right reason, not what he could have done for the wrong reason."

He turned and found her eyes, relieved. She got it. He was making sense.

"Now he's gone," he said. "And I never got the chance to tell him." He paused. "I can't help but believe the wrong brother died."

"That kind of thinking will drive you crazy."

He nodded.

"I mean it. Stephen told me what happened, about killing that man in the bar. He said he felt the same way you do now, that the wrong man had died. Allen, that's not for us to decide. We can only do the best we can with the understanding we have."

Allen smiled. "Didn't I say you were pretty and smart?"

"Something like that."

He couldn't hold on to the smile. He felt like weeping, just crying like a baby. "So what am I supposed to do? Fill Stephen's boots? Leave medicine, become a pastor?"

"I can't answer that, but if you follow that course because that's what Stephen did, then it doesn't seem any better than becoming a physician because your dad wanted you to. Why don't you take your time, heal, then see?"

"What are you going to do?"

"Take my time, heal, then see."

She pressed her cheek to his chest and hugged him. He draped an arm across her back and stroked her hair. It felt right. Just two people comforting each other. He smiled again, and this time it stayed.

About the author

Robert Liparulo's

Germ paints a scenario that is so frighteningly real, six Hollywood producers were already bidding on the rights before the novel was completed. His acclaimed debut novel, Comes a Horseman, is being made into a major motion picture by producer Mace Neufeld and Liparulo's short story "Kill Zone" was featured in the anthology Thriller, edited by James Patterson.

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Copyright © 2006 by Robert Liparulo

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