Terminal

“Sean’s no terrorist!” Brian said, horrified at this talk.

“I’d like to volunteer to be with the assault team,” Harris said, speaking up for the first time. “I know the terrain.”

“This is not amateur hour,” Hector said.

“I’m no amateur,” Harris said indignantly. “I trained as a commando in the service and carried out a number of commando missions in Desert Storm.”

“I think something should be done sooner rather than later,” Dr. Levy said. “The longer that crazy kid is left up there, the more damage he can do to our ongoing experiments.”

Everyone ducked again as another helicopter made a low pass over the parking area. This one had “Channel 4 TV” on its side.

Hector yelled for Anderson to call the complaint room to have them call Channel 4 to get their goddamn helicopter away from the scene or he’d let the SWAT team have a go at it with their automatic weapons.

Despite the noise and general pandemonium, Brian picked up one of the telephones and pressed the redial button. He prayed it would be answered, and it was. But it wasn’t Sean. It was Dr. Mason.

SEAN HAD no idea how many cycles he should let the thermal cyclers run. All he was looking for was a positive reaction in any of the approximately one hundred and fifty wells he’d prepared. Impatient, he stopped the first machine after twenty-five cycles and removed the tray containing the wells.

First he added a biotinylated probe and the enzymatic reagents used to detect whether the probe had reacted in the series of wells containing Helen Cabot’s cerebrospinal fluid. Then he introduced these samples into the chemiluminescence instrument and waited by the printout to see if there was any luminescence.

To Sean’s surprise, the very first sample was positive. Although he fully expected it to be positive eventually, he hadn’t expected a reaction so soon. What this established was that Helen Cabot—just like Malcolm Betencourt—had contracted St. Louis encephalitis in the middle of the winter, which was strange since the normal vector for the illness is a mosquito.

Sean then turned his attention to the other wells where he would be searching for the presence of oncogenes. But before he could start adding the appropriate probes, he was interrupted by Dr. Mason.

Although the phone had rung intermittently after he’d spoken with Sergeant Hunt, Sean had ignored it. Apparently Dr. Mason had ignored it too, because on several occasions it rang for extended periods. Sean had finally turned the ringer off on his extension. But apparently it had rung again and apparently this time Dr. Mason had answered it because he’d gingerly opened the door to tell Sean that his brother was on the line.

Although Sean hated to interrupt what he was doing, he felt guilty enough about Brian to take his call. The first thing he did was apologize for striking him.

“I’m willing to forgive and forget,” Brian said. “But you have to end this nonsense right now and come down here and give yourself up.”

“I can’t,” Sean said. “I need another hour or so, maybe two at the most.”

“What in God’s name are you doing?” Brian asked.

“It’ll take too long to explain,” Sean said. “But it’s big stuff.”

“I’m afraid you have no idea of the hullabaloo you’re causing,” Brian said. “They’ve got everyone here but the National Guard. You’ve gone too far this time. If you don’t come out this minute and put a stop to this, I won’t have anything to do with you.”

“I only need a little more time,” Sean said. “I’m not asking for the world.”

“There’s a bunch of gung ho nuts out here,” Brian said. “They’re talking about storming the building.”

“Make sure they know about the purported nitroglycerin,” Sean said. “That’s supposed to dissuade them from heroics.”

“What do you mean, ‘purported nitroglycerin’?” Brian asked.

“It’s mostly ethanol with just a little acetone,” Sean said. “It looks like nitroglycerin. At least, it’s close enough to fool Dr. Mason. You didn’t think I’d make up a batch of the real thing, did you?”

“At this point,” Brian said, “I wouldn’t put anything past you.”

“Just talk them out of any commando action,” Sean said. “Get me at least one more hour.”

Sean could hear Brian continue to protest, but Sean didn’t listen. Instead he hung up the phone and turned back to the first thermal cycler tray.

Sean hadn’t gotten far with the oncogene probes when Janet came through the stairwell door trailing computer printout sheets.

“No problem finding the Forbes travel file,” she said. She thrust the computer paper at Sean. “For whatever it’s worth, Dr. Deborah Levy does a lot of traveling, but it’s mostly back and forth to Key West.”

Sean glanced at the printout. “She does keep on the move,” he agreed. “But notice all these other cities. That’s what I expected. What about Margaret Richmond?”

“No travel to Key West,” Janet said. “But moderate travel around the country. About once a month she’s off to another city.”

“What about that automated program we saw?” Sean asked.