Germ

Okay . . . Goody called a little after six. Despesorio Vero showed up at CDC. What kind of name is that? What was that accent? Mexican? Did he travel to the States, or did he live here? Why did he want to see Mark Sweeney? National Center for Infectious Diseases . . . National Center for Infectious Diseases.

Pressure behind her eyes. She wanted to cry . . . and she didn't want to.

What are the five stages of grief? Or are there six? Denial . . . anger . . . depression . . . No, bargaining, then depression . . .

Ahhhh! Goody went into the Excelsior. The SATD was working. His wire was working. Some white noise, maybe the hotel's AC. He ordered orange juice, then Vero came in, asked if he was Sweeney.

Her top teeth found a ridge on her bottom lip, the scab from having bitten into it earlier. She bit down, feeling the pain, letting it move her away from her grief. She tasted blood.

He said Vero didn't look well. Then . . .

She remembered the gunfire, how loud it was through the ear-piece. Goody had yelled. People were screaming in the background.

She closed her eyes, pinching out a tear. She bit harder on her lip, swallowed against the lump in her throat, fought the flood at her eyes.

If Julia had distracted herself by stepping outside and

looking north, she would have seen in the distance the shape of Missionary Ridge. It was discernable at that time of evening by the lights radiating from the large homes perched on it. If it had been pointed out to her, she could have seen, near the very peak of the mountain, a light glowing in the study of the recipient of Goody's last mortal words.

Dr. Allen Parker sat at his desk, a fire roaring in a nearby hearth, Mozart's Requiem streaming through ceiling-mounted speakers. He was torn between two piles of books and papers. One pile contained everything he needed to finish an article he was writing for the Journal of the American Medical Association on the benefits of partial liquid ventilation for patients with severe respiratory failure. It was already three days overdue.

The other pile interested him more. He pulled a book off the top of the stack—Field Virology.

"Okay, Mr. Donnelley," he said out loud. "You got me. Now let's see if you knew what you were talking about."

He turned to the table of contents, ran his finger down the chapter titles, then turned to chapter 39. A single word in large type at the top of the page read Filoviridae. As he began to read, words and phrases seared into his mind—hetnorrhagic fever, outbreak, abrupt onset of illness, death, no known vaccine. A headache brewed behind his eyes, but he continued reading. Epidemic. Biosafety level 4. Human pathogen. Mortality.

Occasionally he'd look up from an article or book to Google a phrase on the iMac on his desk. One online search would lead to another, and twenty minutes would pass before he'd return to the hard copy he'd been reading.

More than a few times he'd light a cigarette and promptly forget about it. He'd find a butt attached to a delicate cylinder of ashes in the ashtray and have to light another one. In his study, he puffed away as if it were the best thing he could do. Erlanger had become smoke-free, forcing him to smoke outside with the other diehards. It made him feel ostracized and dirty. More times than not, when people saw him in the hall heading for the door with cig and lighter in hand, they'd say, "Doctors smoke?" like Cops commit crimes? He'd answer, "This one does."