Pandemic

A moment later, a bearded, pudgy man walked into the room. He was dressed in a cheap, ill-fitting gray suit with white shirt and an overly wide black tie. Sweat dripped down from his brow and his exposed shirt had patches of wetness soaked through. He avoided eye contact with Gwen; instead his small dark eyes darted around the room as if looking for a small pet that had escaped.

Gwen's anxiety broke through the tethers of her determination when she saw the long needle and syringe in the fat man's hand.

Sabri said something to the man in Arabic.

The man walked toward Gwen. He stopped at the side of the bed. As he stooped forward to move the needle near the intravenous cannula in her arm, Gwen squirmed wildly on the cot but gained nothing from the effort except more wrist pain. The fat man slid the needle into the cannula, but his thumb rested still on the syringe's plunger.

"This is Dr. Aziz," Sabri said, nodding at the man. "He is going to help us."

"Help us how?" Gwen asked, breathing very rapidly.

"I want to go over your answers again, Dr. Savard," Sabri said.

She fought to control the hyperventilation. "What's he giving me?"

"Something to relax you," Sabri said.

"If you want me relaxed, untie me," Gwen snarled at her captor. "What's in the damn syringe?"

Sabri pointed at the syringe. "That is thiopental sodium. I think you call it truth serum." He nodded to the fat man and said something in Arabic.

Gwen's heart slammed against her chest as she watched Aziz depress the plunger of the syringe.

Her eyelids felt heavy. Seconds later, she felt herself float free of the bed.

CHAPTER 41

WOODMORE, MARYLAND

Sitting in the passenger seat of Clayton's black Lincoln, Haldane paid no attention to the sights flying by his window or the hooting horns and screeching brakes of the other cars they cut off as Clayton raced them out of Washington and into Maryland. Instead he sat still in the passenger seat, staring at his feet, seething with anger and worry.

Eighteen minutes after leaving Washington, on a trip that normally would have taken forty, the sedan swung into the gas station's parking lot, which overflowed with police cars, crime-scene vans, and other vehicles.

Abandoning the car in the lot's driveway, Clayton jumped out, leaving the door open behind him. Haldane and McLeod piled out after him. They elbowed their way through the throngs of police, technicians, and other government officials to get to where Gwen's navy Lexus sat in the far comer of the lot. A team of crime-scene investigators buzzed around it.

Just before they reached the car, a dowdy woman with a short bob and a plain black pantsuit waved to Clayton. "Alex!" she called.

Haldane and McLeod followed Clayton as he hurried over to where the woman stood by the gas pumps. He pointed to her. "Moira Roberts, FBI Deputy Director." He swung a finger over to the others. "Drs. Noah Haldane and Duncan McLeod with the WHO."

When Roberts flashed Clayton a look suggesting she wasn't thrilled to see two civilians at the crime scene, Clayton said, "They're okay. They work with Gwen. Tell us what you know."

"Of course, I'm only here in an administrative capacity, but I believe I'm up-to-date with the investigation," Roberts said.

Clayton rolled his hand in a get-on-with-it gesture.

"The car was abandoned in the lot some time after midnight when the gas station closed," Roberts said with a troubled frown. "According to the clerk there was another car, a gray sedan, parked in the space right beside it when he closed up last night. We're presuming that whoever abducted her—"

"It's not whoever," McLeod cut in. "It's Abdul bloody Sabri!"

Roberts folded her arms across her chest. "There is no proof that her abduction is even related to the bioterrorist conspiracy."

"Stupid me, jumping to conclusions!" McLeod grunted. "Short of finding a burnt American flag and effigy of the President hanging from the rearview mirror, what sort of proof—"

"Enough," Clayton growled. "You were saying, Moira…"

"We believe that the kidnapper or kidnappers must have moved Dr. Savard from her own car into the gray sedan, though we have no eyewitnesses to that effect."

Roberts's by-the-book manner fueled Haldane's impatience. He snapped his fingers. "They said something about blood on the backseat?" he demanded.

She nodded. "There is a blood trail, more of a smear really, along the backseat," she said matter-of-factly. "That's why we're confident Dr. Savard was moved."

Noah wanted to shake Roberts by her lapels. "How much blood?"

"Oh." Roberts waved away his concern with her hand. "Not that much. It's consistent with a cut, for example a scalp laceration."

"Anything else?" Clayton asked.