Germ

"From doing what?"

"Honestly, I do not know." He sounded even more tired than previously. "But considering Karl's . . . expertise, I have some ideas."

"Such as?"

"A biological attack on the United States."

"And who is Karl Litt to you?"

"A bad investment."

"You're in business with him?"

"He worked for the government at one time. Now he doesn't."

Allen touched her shoulder. He whispered, "Could they be tracing the call?"

She nodded. "Give me a number where I can reach you."

"Ms. Matheson, you can end this now. Thousands of lives—"

"A number or we never speak again."

She waited. After a long moment, he recited a number and a security code. She closed the flip phone and dropped it out the window.

sixty-one

Kendrick Reynolds cradled the handset and looked at his assistant. Captain Landon watched him carefully, unsure of Kendrick's mood.

"Interesting," was all Kendrick would say. He pulled a breath through the mouthpiece of his God-head pipe, found it had gone out, and plucked it from his mouth.

Maybe it was for the best that Julia and the Parkers knew precisely who they were dealing with. He didn't know about Stephen Parker, but reports on Allen Parker pegged him as some sort of medical Einstein, and just now Julia had made her intelligence abundantly clear. These were the kind of people who didn't believe in "the man behind the curtain"; they wanted names and faces and resumes.

Now they have mine, he thought.

That both frightened and exhilarated him. If laying himself bare before people who had the evidence not only to destroy his future but to dismantle his past resulted in finding Litt and burying that very evidence against himself—well, this could turn out to be his most brilliant play yet. What a way to end his career. Absently, he ran a finger over the face of God.

Of course, Matheson and the Parkers themselves were loose ends that would need tying up. But for now, he needed only to get his hands on whatever it was Vero had left and Litt was trying to get back. Something, definitely. The woman had all but admitted to having it.

His eyes refocused on the captain. "Anything?" he asked.

Captain Landon checked his monitor. He pushed a button and spoke into a mouthpiece clamped to his head.

Kendrick wheeled himself back, spun his chair, and positioned it near a recliner. He reached out and got hold of a wooden cane. He rocked his body out of the chair, leaning heavily on the cane. Aiming for the room's exit, he took two halting steps. His third was more sure.

"Sir?" the captain called behind him.

Kendrick didn't look back or stop his gait; he was shuffling but moving along at a good clip.

"The cell phone has stopped moving. Our team will intercept it in twenty minutes."

Kendrick waved his free hand. "Ah! She got rid of it. We can only hope she calls."

Seventy seconds later, he made it to the door and stepped through.

"Do you trust him?" Stephen asked. He was still steering the van through the streets of Atlanta. Being a moving target gave them a small measure of comfort.

"Not as far as I can throw this van," Allen said.

"I don't know," Julia said.

"Look," Allen snapped, "he wants the evidence kept secret and claims Vero was bringing it to him. That means he's involved."

"He's offering to help," Stephen reminded him.

"What else would he say? 'I want to kill you for the evidence and because you know too much. Let's meet'?"

"He may be our best chance of getting out of this mess intact."

Stephen wasn't completely convinced of his own words, Julia could tell, but he wanted to examine all the possibilities.

"Our best chance of getting killed, more likely," Allen said. "For all we know, Kendrick Reynolds is behind this whole thing. It makes sense: He's got the money and the power to do everything we've witnessed. Finding us. Sending cops to kill us—Julia, you said it had the government's fingerprints all over it; this guy's as government as they get. Hiring 'the world's best assassin.' Come on!"

She let Allen's voice fade into the throaty drone of the engine. Deep in concentration, she stared out at the city, at its eclectic people and architecture, at its silent clash of old and new, beautiful and ugly. She was vaguely aware of sunlight slicing through the van at a different angle each time Stephen rounded a corner; of the rising temperature, turning the air muggy and soporific; of an increasing sense of being nothing more than a bit player in a tragedy already written and rolling along toward an unknown climax. All of it could have too easily congealed into an atmosphere of hopelessness.