He saw Rebecca's cross look out of the corner of his eye.

"I'm fine, thank you, Tane. How is your mum? I haven't seen her in such a long time."

"Oh, she's fine, thanks," Tane replied.

"What's happening on your program?" Rebecca asked conversationally, casually turning the Chronophone plans upside down on the tabletop as her mother poured herself a gla.s.s of orange juice from the fridge.

"Oh, I don't know." Her mum looked quite annoyed. "It's getting hard to follow. They keep interrupting it with those blasted news reports."

"News reports?" It was Tane who asked.

"Oh, all those cordons up past Whangarei. Mad cow disease, something like that."

The three of them sat openmouthed as Rebecca's mum disappeared back upstairs.

"There's a TV in the lounge," Rebecca said unnecessarily.

The newsreader was as smooth and polished as a greenstone tiki. They watched with increasing shock as the details of a quarantine zone were announced. A police spokesperson was interviewed and urged residents to stay calm but to avoid any unnecessary travel. Mad cow disease had been discovered on a Northland farm, a cattle disease potentially damaging to New Zealand's dairy exports.

The main highway had been cordoned off at Kawakawa to the south of Russell and at Kerikeri to the north. All ancillary roads had also been blocked. There was no movement in or out of the quarantine zone without special permission of the police and military who were policing it.

In the same bulletin, but declared as an unrelated story, the police were searching for two teenagers and an unknown number of accomplices in connection with the disappearance of a prominent scientist from a research station in the Bay of Islands.

A photo of Professor Green was displayed, along with a potted summary of her career, followed by a police sketch of Rebecca and Tane. It wasn't a good likeness.

"What the h.e.l.l is going on?" Fatboy wanted to know when the bulletin had finished.

"Disappearance!" Rebecca's mouth just about hit the floor. "So that's what the soldiers meant by 'Where are the hostages?' They think we kidnapped Vicky!"

"And the rest of her team!" Fatboy realized.

Tane said, "But we didn't. So who did? And what's this about mad cow disease?"

"It's not mad cow," Rebecca said. "That's just a story, to avoid panic."

"So what is it?" Tane asked.

Rebecca said chillingly, "Isn't it obvious? Something bad did did happen on the island. The Chimera Project." happen on the island. The Chimera Project."

Tane got up and turned the sound off on the TV. The sudden silence in the room seemed to take all the warmth out of the day, despite the unfettered sunshine outside.

Rebecca said, "I think we were too late. That whatever it was that we were supposed to stop has already happened."

'TIS THE S SEASON He sees you when you're sleeping, He knows when you're awake.

He knows if you've been bad or good, So be good for goodness sake!

-J. Fred Coots and Haven Gillespie, "Santa Claus Is Coming to Town"

The week leading up to Christmas was full of the noise and fun and shopping that is like no other time of the year. Christmas was full of the noise and fun and shopping that is like no other time of the year.

Carolers sang joyously on street corners, whole streets of houses were festooned with thousands of tiny lightbulbs, and children sat fearfully on Santa's knee in the shopping malls and asked for outrageous gifts like ponies and s.p.a.ceships and magic rings that could make them fly.

Shops promised pre-Christmas sales, large corporations sponsored nighttime light shows and drew Santa's sleigh on the clouds in colored laser light.

Drivers and shoppers alike grew increasingly irritable as stressed-out motorists and frazzled parents gesticulated at each other over places in motorway queues, or parking s.p.a.ces, or the last stock of a special-priced toy.

In other words, the year progressed just like those that preceded it, and apart from the occasional slightly disturbing news report from the north, life was pretty good.

To Tane, Rebecca, and Fatboy, it all seemed like sheer insanity.

The man in the Santa suit glanced casually over at Tane again. Too casually. For the third time.

"Let's get out of here," he said to Rebecca, who was comparing the component numbers on some electrical parts with the list that Fatboy had given them.

Fatboy was still circling the block. He had given up looking for a s.p.a.ce after half an hour of trying. Kmart had a sale on and there wasn't a free parking s.p.a.ce this side of Western Springs.

"But we haven't got the capacitors yet." She frowned, running her finger along a row of small, labeled plastic bins.

"Santa Claus has been watching us for the last five minutes."

Rebecca looked around at the man, who quickly looked away. "Might be a store detective. The way you're acting, I'd be watching you too."

"A store detective in a Santa suit?" Tane took a deep breath and tried to calm down. It didn't help. A police car went past outside with its siren crying, and he accidentally knocked over an entire stand of Dummies Dummies books. He picked them up quickly, before the sales a.s.sistant could come and help. books. He picked them up quickly, before the sales a.s.sistant could come and help.

Santa was watching them again, Tane realized, half hidden on the other side of a circular stand of electronics magazines. He was curiously thin-faced for a Santa, who was usually a chubby, jovial fellow. This Santa had a scar above one eye, not quite masked by the stuck-on bushy eyebrows. He looked like a spy in a Santa costume. Or a hired killer. Or a soldier.

"He's still got his eye on us," Tane whispered, covering his mouth with his hand in case Santa could read lips.

"You'd better watch out," Rebecca said quietly.

"What? Why?" Tane hissed urgently.

"You'd better not cry..."

"Cry?" Tane stared at his friend in confusion.

"Got it," said Rebecca, picking up a couple of small metal objects out of a plastic tray. "Let's get out of here."

"Cry?" Tane asked again.

Rebecca laughed gaily and sang in Tane's ear, "He's making a list and checking it twice; he's gonna find out who's naughty and nice..."

Tane groaned and punched Rebecca lightly on the arm.

For all her frivolity, though, he noticed that her hands were shaking as she handed over the money at the counter.

Fatboy swept into the curb in the Wrangler as they emerged from the electronics shop. They swung on board, Rebecca in the front, Tane in the back, and Fatboy pulled out again in a seamless maneuver.

He handed a newspaper to Rebecca as he steered carefully around a family of four lugging two long plastic kayaks across the parking area.

"Made the front page!"

Rebecca looked at it and wordlessly handed it back to Tane.

HUNT C CONTINUES FOR T TEENAGERS, the headline blared over the police drawings of him and Rebecca. Rebecca's was a reasonable resemblance, he thought, but his picture looked like an axe-murderer.

Rebecca had dyed her hair jet black since the escape from the soldiers and had started wearing a cap. It was summer, so they all wore sungla.s.ses. All in all, Tane didn't think they were in any danger of being recognized by a pa.s.sing stranger. But what if one of their school friends recognized the pictures?

"What do we do?" he asked.

"Nothing," Fatboy replied immediately. "It doesn't change a thing. They'll never recognize Rebecca from a picture like that, although yours is a pretty good likeness."

"Bite me," Tane said.

The Wrangler was an open-top jeep, which would have seemed like a lot of fun on such a lovely, sunstruck day. But it made Tane feel elevated and conspicuous. There was nothing to hide behind.

They sat silently in a queue to get out of the car park. Tane pretended to rest his face on his hand to shield himself from an elderly couple in an old Volvo in the next lane.

"The worst thing is feeling like a criminal all the time," he said, almost to himself, "when we haven't done anything wrong."

"I know what you mean," Rebecca said in a small voice, and Tane thought, not for the first time, that she was a lot more fragile than she was making out. She had that tired, heavy look about her again. Perhaps she felt that she, of all of them, had the most to lose.

The car radio was tuned to a news talk station.

"Any news on the plague?" Tane asked.

"Nothing," Fatboy replied. "Quarantine zone is still in place, apparently, but there's been no other reports."

"Let's hope it stays that way," Tane said.

SILENT N NIGHT A strange fog rolled through the streets of New Zealand's northernmost city-Whangarei-on the night before Christmas, blanketing the city. Streets that were usually full of festivity and Christmas Eve revelers became unusually, deathly silent. the streets of New Zealand's northernmost city-Whangarei-on the night before Christmas, blanketing the city. Streets that were usually full of festivity and Christmas Eve revelers became unusually, deathly silent.

By morning, not a creature was stirring in the city of nearly fifty thousand people, except for the birds in the trees and the small animals of the undergrowth; the pets, now howling and yowling for their owners; a few farm animals; and, of course, the occasional mouse.

WHITE C CHRISTMAS Sleep in heavenly peace Sleep in heavenly peace.

-Josef Mohr, "Silent Night"

Crawford landed the Sikorsky MH-60S Knighthawk helicopter in the middle of the main road, touching down with a gentle sigh. Knighthawk helicopter in the middle of the main road, touching down with a gentle sigh.

Crowe was out before the engine had even been switched off, ducking his head against the wash from the rotors.

He stopped next to his second in command, Big "Mandy" Manderson, and stared to the north. His shoulder itched and he absently reached up to scratch it, realizing the futility only as his finger connected with the solid Kevlar of his armored combat biosuit. The suit was black. It was a positive-pressure suit, so even if it was damaged, the higher air pressure inside would keep pathogens from getting in. Scientists in biohazard labs wore positive-pressure suits but the air pressure was about the only similarity. Crowe's suit, and those of his team, were made of bulletproof Kevlar with ceramic chest and stomach plates. They were not only protection from germs, but also protection against human germs with guns. For all that, it was lightweight and about as comfortable as a black combat biosuit could be.

"Still think it's terrorists?" Mandy asked in his slow Southern drawl.

Crowe didn't answer.

It was dark. The sun was still hiding a couple of hours away behind the forests and the ocean to the east, but even so, all over New Zealand, excited children would be waking up-with that natural, internal alarm clock that kids have on Christmas morning-and eagerly unwrapping presents.

Except in Whangarei.

Crowe stood in the middle of the road and looked at the fog. He had never seen a fog quite like it before. The edge of it was so well defined that it looked as if you could walk up to it and touch it. It was as if a puffy c.u.mulus cloud had dropped from the sky and settled on the road in front of him.

A road sign just in front of the fog was perfectly clear, but everything behind it was blanketed in white. WHANGAREI 2 K 2 KM the sign announced. the sign announced.

The calls to emergency services had started at eleven the previous night. The local police station had gone off the air, so police officers from surrounding areas had rushed to the scene. They had reported seeing the fog; then their radios had fallen silent.

"What did you find out?" Mandy asked.

Specialist First Cla.s.s Evans, the unit's newest and youngest recruit, appeared at his side, holding a bunch of large-scale photographs. "The satellite images you asked for," he said, handing them over to Crowe.

Crowe flicked through them quickly. They were in series, with a date/time stamp at the top of each photograph in black computer lettering. The photos themselves were grainy black-and-white weather satellite images showing the top of the North Island of New Zealand.

"There it is," Crowe said, pointing to a small fuzzy spot on one of the photos. "That's the fog over Motukiekie."

He flicked forward a couple of photos. "Here it is moving south, across the water."

He looked up at Manderson. "It comes inland here, to the east of Russell, but misses Russell, Paihia, Kawakawa, and travels through the Russell forest, then down the coastline through this area here. What is this area?"

"Mainly forests and farmland," Mandy said, consulting a map.