Germ

Later, every cop there would admit to their colleagues, their wives, or themselves, feeling the same sense of astounded terror, like waking to the realization that everything you thought about the universe was wrong. Despite the killer's uncanny ability to withstand horrendous injuries, nothing startled them so much as the unflinching concentration he displayed when he changed ammo clips. In the midst of an unceasing barrage of gunfire, he swung another magazine up to his gun just as he fired his last round and the slide locked open. The spent clip dropped away. He jammed in the new one with the ease and thoughtless habit of checking the time. Shattered and shooting, he had somehow kept track of his every shot, knowing the precise moment to change clips. The process delayed his shooting no more than a second.

The moment the new magazine was seated into the handle of the gun, his free hand dropped down to his belt, where another magazine was clipped. His hand stayed there, ready.

Then his chest erupted in a mist, and he toppled.

The quaking of guns ceased. Silence rushed in to fill the void like water into a new footprint; its presence felt heavy. All eyes watched the body sprawled across the curb. A sheet of blood fanned out on the sidewalk from the chest and shoulders; rivulets of it began snaking from under other parts—head, arms, legs—and flowed into the gutter.

Somebody coughed, breaking the spell; another cursed loudly. Then the air filled with the sound of guns being reloaded, magazines refilled, spent shells being kicked on the ground and swept off car surfaces.

Julia watched as three patrolmen cautiously approached the body, shotguns poised to continue the onslaught should the body so much as twitch. They were spaced well apart to avoid being slaughtered as a group.

A noise erupted from the killer. A melody. Lights appeared on what Julia had thought was another magazine clipped to his belt. It was the man's cell phone, and it was ringing.

The three cops instantly locked into combat firing stances.

The musical ring tone was a song Julia knew: Pink Floyd's "Comfortably Numb." After about ten seconds, it stopped.

One of the cops glanced over his shoulder, checking his comrades for guidance they didn't have; another inched forward, kicked away the assailant's pistol, and stretched his hand to the assailant's neck. An eternity later, he gestured that he'd found no pulse. While the other two covered him, the first hefted the body on its side to cuff the hands behind the back. Julia had seen corpses cuffed before, but never with so much gravity. The cop ran a hand along the body's perimeter, pulling a heavy knife from an ankle sheath and the cell phone from the belt. He tossed them aside.

Julia closed her eyes and lowered her face to the pavement, feeling tiny pebbles bite into her cheek. She was grateful for their solidarity, for how real they felt. She stayed like that as EMTs assessed Stinky— he was alive with surprisingly strong vitals—and until a cop came over and pressed his fingers to her throat.

"I'm okay," she said and cupped her face in her hands.

thirty-two

Gregor woke from a dream in which he was field-stripping a rifle, alone in a vast arctic landscape. The rifle made sense: he'd broken down and cleaned and reassembled a fair share of them. He wasn't so sure where the winter conditions came from. His foster parents had lived in Wyoming, which certainly got cold and snowy, but nothing like in his dream. Maybe it had something to do with his thirty-year stretch in a tropic climate. No snow. Ever.

His room was dark, except for a soft, unfamiliar light. At the very moment that he saw the light was coming from one of the two cell phones on his nightstand, it rang. Its previous ring must have been what pulled him from his imaginary midnight wandering.

"Yes?" It came out as a croak. He repeated the word.

He recognized the voice on the other end, and his mind cleared immediately. The voice recited a code phrase. Gregor thought for a moment, then returned the proper reply. He listened. "But aren't you there now? . . . Chattanooga, Tennessee . . . Of course, I can resend the files, but—hold on, let me get a pen."

He threw back his blankets, swung his legs off the bed, and turned on the bedside lamp. Something wasn't right. The great warrior Ts'ao Kung said the essence of battlefield success was "to mystify, mislead, and surprise the enemy."

The enemy! Gregor thought. Not your allies, not your commanders!

Code phrase or not, the call worried him. But the man was not someone you questioned or angered. He possessed the phone number, the code phrase, the voice. Gregor didn't know what else to do. He stood and stumbled toward his desk for a pen.

He wished he were back field-stripping a rifle in subzero temperatures.

thirty-three