Germ

Stephen must have been uneasy too. He shifted nervously. "How many?" he asked.

"I don't know. Five thousand? Ten?"

"What's it matter?" Allen said, patting his breast pocket, finding nothing. "We don't know the significance of these names. Could be a Christmas card list, for all we know." He opened the glove box and began rooting around. "What are we going to do, phone up Richard Kennedy and everyone else who's on it? 'Excuse me, sir, do you happen to know the guy who's planning to invade the U.S. with the Ebola virus?'"

Julia suspected that apprehension was a strange guest in Allen Parker's psyche; showing anger was easier than facing a new emotion. She waited for something else to materialize on the screen. When it didn't, she leaned over the laptop and started typing. She was digging for more information the way Allen was hunting for a cigarette. Both came up cold.

She slid back into her chair, seeming to be swallowed by it.

"What now?" Stephen asked.

She took a minute to answer. The chip wasn't what she had hoped it would be. It contained no quick solution, no proof of who was doing what to whom and why; it didn't even contain evidence they could use—not without knowing what it was evidence of. Like most evidentiary material, it was maddeningly ambiguous, needing to be united with other puzzle pieces before its value became clear. She wanted to kick the computer right off the chair but didn't have the energy. Finally she took a deep breath and raised her eyebrows to him. "We've been here too long. Let's get moving."

"Anywhere in particular?"

She skewed her mouth, considering. "No," she said and laughed a little. "Nowhere at all."

fifty-nine

About ten minutes into their journey to nowhere in particular, Allen said, "The planes."

"What planes?" Stephen asked. "You mean the crop duster?" "That's what got me thinking, that and the airstrip on that base." He had been riding with his feet up on the dash like a teenager. He brought them down and turned to Julia. "Would you agree the people trying to kill us are professionals?"

"Professional hit men? Yeah, seems that way to me."

"Then they're probably not from Atlanta. Certainly not Chattanooga. Not enough work for them."

She saw where he was heading. "They flew in for the job."

He nodded. "And I'll bet they didn't take commercial flights. They've got special weapons. Need to move quickly, on their own schedule. They don't want too much scrutiny."

"So a chartered or private plane?" Julia said. "That's what I'm thinking."

"And landing at the airport leaves a record, a lead." "Not necessarily. Airports aren't required to log every landing.

Most do since 9/11. Sometimes there's a record only if the plane paid for fuel or overnight parking."

"There'll be records," she said. "Goody's killers didn't make their return flight, and the Warrior stayed awhile. Parking fees are a gimme."

"Can you access airport records?"

"Hey, I'm a federal agent—I can do anything." She smiled and reached down to maneuver the makeshift table off the floor. Allen moved to help, but she had it in place between the front and rear chairs before he could decide which part of the board to grab. She transferred the laptop to it.

"Seriously, this thing is loaded with programs that can worm their way into most computer systems. They're designed for on-site searches of computers used for criminal activities. You wouldn't believe the gimmicks perps use to prevent their data from making it to a tech lab. Magnetized doorways that wipe out hard drives as police carry them through; reserve batteries that blitz the data with a power surge, triggered by mercury switches to detect movement or zero-current switches that detect when the computer is unplugged. One child pornographer booby-trapped his computer with homemade C-4. It was rigged to detonate if the computer was lifted off of a pressure-sensitive pad. We spotted it before it hurt anyone, but it would have vaporized the evidence, along with the house and a half dozen cops. Anyway, it's best to seize the data right at the scene. I have programs that slice through the toughest computer security systems like they weren't even there. Where do I start?" Her fingers were poised over the keyboard.

"Try General Aviation, Chattanooga Metropolitan Airport."

She scooted closer to the computer, eyes flicking from keyboard to screen and back.

"See what they show for landings, parking, fuel sales, maintenance."

A few minutes passed. Then she swiveled the monitor around for Allen to see.

He leaned in. "Those are the flight progress strips."

"Going back two weeks," Julia said, smug. "But this is where I hit a brick wall. I have no idea what to look for."

"Let me see." He pulled it closer, squinting at the entries.

"How do you know all this?" she asked.