"And the subject? What about him?"

"KIA at the site."

"Killed?" Gault asked, giving the word the kind of dubious inflection it now deserved. It wasn't lost on the American, who hesitated before continuing with his report.

"One of the Baltimore cops took him down. He was taken to a local hospital as a DOA and I'm told that he's on ice somewhere."

Gault considered this. If the subject was in a morgue storage drawer then the plan was going off the rails. He had been infected with Generation Three of the Seif al Din, the Sword of the Faithful. He should not have been lying idly about. However, Gault seriously doubted that this was the case. "Find out for sure."

"I've put a top guy on it and should be able to lock it down soonest."

"What about the other two shipments?"

"They left by truck the day before the place was. .h.i.t."

"Did everything go as planned?"

"Sure. They successfully tailed the one we wanted and lost the other. It all went fine. Right now they're surveilling the big plant and doing satellite flybys and thermal scans with helos. But no one has gone in because of a general sit-and-wait order."

"Issued by whom?"

The American cleared his throat. "The Geek Squad."

"Geek Squad" was their personal code for the DMS.

"Perfect."

"Glad you think so," said the American, "but I think you're playing with G.o.dd.a.m.n fire here."

"Have a little faith," chided Gault.

"Faith, my a.s.s. How are we going to evacuate the plant, that's my question? The Geeks may only be watching now but a go order can come down any second, and I don't think I can stop them from-"

Gault cut him off. "I'm not asking you to. Just sit tight and keep your eyes and ears open. I'll be reachable for the next three or four days. In the meantime, download everything including the official warehouse a.s.sault report to my PDA." He parted the tent flaps and looked out at the rocks and sand, at the spa.r.s.e bunchgra.s.s and withered scrub date palms. This part of Afghanistan always looked like a wasteland. Then a flash of movement caught his eye and he saw three people coming toward him from the mouth of a small cave halfway up the valley-a woman with two heavily armed guards flanking her. Amirah, coming to take him to the lab. He let out the held breath that had started to burn stale in his chest.

"But it's too late to evacuate the staff " the American said.

"Are you that concerned for their well-being?"

The American laughed. "Yeah, right. I'm thinking of what the Geek Squad could do with what they find in there."

"They'll do exactly what we want them to do." He meant to say "what I want them to do," but decided to throw the American a bone. "Keep me posted. If you can't reach me then make sure my a.s.sistant has regular updates."

The American made a rude noise. There was no love lost between him and Toys.

"You sure this bulls.h.i.t is going to work?"

"Work?" Gault echoed softly as he watched Amirah walk toward him and saw that her step was lively, filled with excitement. He knew what kinds of things excited this woman. "It already has worked."

He closed the phone and put it in his pocket.

Chapter Ten.

Baltimore, Maryland / Sat.u.r.day, June 27; 6:19 P.M.

"DR. SANCHEZ'S OFFICE."

"Kittie? It's Joe. Rudy free?"

"Oh, he's gone for the day. I think he went to the gym-"

"Thanks." I cleared the call and then thumb-dialed the number for Gold's on Pratt Street. They got Rudy to the phone.

"Joe," he said. Rudy sounds like Raul Julia from The Addams Family years. "I thought you were in Ocean City. Something about a tan, an endless stream of bikinis, and a sixer of Corona. Wasn't that the great master plan?"

"Plans change. Look, you free?"

"When?"

"Now."

A slight pause as he shifted gears. "Are you okay?"

"Not entirely."

Another shift, this time from concern to caution. "Is this about what happened at the warehouse?"

"In a way."

"Are you feeling depressed or-"

"Cut the s.h.i.t, Rudy, this is off the clock." He got that. Since long before Helen's first suicide attempt Rudy had been my shrink some of the time and my friend all of the time. Now I needed my friend, but I wanted his brain, too. "Get dressed and come outside. I'll be there in five."

I MET RUDY Sanchez ten years ago during his residency at Sinai. He'd worked with Helen since the first time she'd been checked in after the spiders started coming out of the walls. Now we were both dealing with Helen's suicide in different ways. I needed him for my part of it, and he needed me for his. None of Rudy's patients had ever killed themselves before, and he took it pretty hard. There's professional detachment and then there's basic humanity. Rudy's a great shrink. He was born for the profession, I think. He listens with every molecule of his body and he has insight.

He came out of Gold's wearing electric-blue bike shorts and a black tank top, carrying an Under-Armour gym bag.

"You have a bike?" I asked, looking around.

"No, I drove."

"What's with the shorts?"

"There's a new fitness trainer. Jamaican gal tall, gorgeous."

"And "

"Bike shorts show off my package."

"Jesus Christ."

"Jealousy is an ugly thing, Joe."

"Get in the f.u.c.king car."

We drove to Bellevue State Park, bought some bottled water, and walked off into the forest. I hadn't said much of anything in the car and Rudy let it be, waiting for me to open up, but after we'd been walking for five minutes he cleared his throat. "This is getting pretty remote for a therapy session, cowboy."

"Not what it is."

"Then what? Does the FBI want you to get your forestry merit badge?"

"Need privacy."

"Your car won't do it?"

"Not sure about that."

He smiled. "You ought to consider seeing a therapist about that paranoia."

I ignored him. The park trail brought us into a small clearing by a brook. I led the way down to the scattering of rocks. For a small brook it had a nice steady burble. Useful. Not that I really expected long-range mics, but safe is better than careless.

"Okay, don't take this the wrong way, Rudy, but I'm going to take off all my clothes. You can turn around. I wouldn't want you to lose confidence in your package."

He sat down on a rock and picked up some small stones to toss. I stripped down to the skin and first examined every inch of my boxers, checking the seams and label. Nothing, so I put them back on.

"Thank G.o.d," Rudy said.

I shot him the finger and went through the process with the borrowed clothes.

"What are you looking for?"

"Bugs."

"Bugs as in creepy crawlies or bugs as in I'm being ape-s.h.i.t paranoid and my psychiatrist friend had better keep the Thorazine handy?"

"That one," I said as I put the sweats on and sat on a rock five feet away.

"What's going on, Joe?"

"That's the thing, Rude I don't know."

His dark eyes searched my face. "Okay," he said, "tell me."

And I did. When I was finished Rudy sat on his rock and stared for a long time at a praying mantis that was sunning herself on a leaf. The sun was a ruby-red ball behind the distant trees and the late afternoon heat was giving way to a breezy coolness as twilight began to gather.

"Joe? Look me in the eye and tell me that everything you've said is true."

I told him.

He watched my pupils, the muscles around my eyes, looking for any shifts in focus. Looking for a tell. "There's no chance this Mr. Church was playing some kind of game on you? There's no chance this Javad was in on it?"

"A few days ago I shot him twice in the back. Today I smashed the guy's face to jelly and then snapped his neck."

"That would be a no, then." His color was starting to look bad as all of this sank in.

"Could a prion do that?"

"Before today I would have said no unreservedly. And I still don't think so."

"What the h.e.l.l are prions anyway? I can't remember what I remember about them."

"Well, there's a lot of mystery attached to them. Prions are small proteinaceous infectious particles that resist inactivation by ordinary procedures that modify nucleic acids. Does that make sense?"

"Not even a little."

"Sadly it doesn't get much simpler. Prions are cutting-edge science and we are quite sure that there is more we don't know than we do know. Prion diseases are often called spongiform encephalopathies because of the postmortem appearance of the brain with large vacuoles in the cortex and cerebellum; makes the brain look like Swiss cheese. The diseases are characterized by loss of motor control, dementia, paralysis, wasting, and eventually death, typically following pneumonia. Mad cow disease is a type of spongiform encephalopathy. Coming back from the dead, however, is definitely not a known symptom."

"So prions couldn't turn a terrorist into one of these monsters?"

"I don't see how. You said Church was only guessing. It's been what five days since you shot Javad? That's not a lot of time to do that kind of medical research. Church may be completely wrong as to the cause."

"Doesn't change the fact that Javad was dead, though."

"Dios mio."

"Rudy you do believe me, right?"

He stared at the mantis some more. "Yes, cowboy. I believe you. I just don't want to."

I had nothing to say to that.

Chapter Eleven.

Grace Courtland and Mr. Church / Easton, Maryland; 6:22 P.M.

MR. CHURCH SAT in the interrogation room and waited. There was a discreet tap on the door and a woman entered. She was medium height, slender, and had looks that Church had once heard referred to as "disturbingly pretty." She wore a tailored gray suit and skirt, low-heeled pumps and coral blouse. Short dark hair, brown eyes with gold flecks. No rings, no jewelry. She looked like a Hollywood accountant or an executive at one of the snootier ad agencies.