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by Judith Reeves-Stevens

  His father had been easygoing, as much as David could remember. His mother, definitely so. Wherever his streak of stubbornness had come from, like his genetic peculiarities, it didn’t seem to be from his parents. Overall, they had simply been accepting of life. When his father had died in the car crash at age thirty-two, David remembered his mother’s grief was short-lived. We go on, she said. Nine years later, at the age of fourteen, David had recalled those words as he stared at his thirty-six-year-old mother in her open casket, taken in turn by cancer.

  We go on. In his case, into foster care, finding freedom only when he went to college, a year ahead of his peers. Early on, he’d realized that everything died. It was the way of things. His mother had been right. We go on. He had.

  Until eight months ago, when he’d discovered that his death was no longer an abstract future decades away.

  Since then he’d experienced anger and frustration, especially when, late at night, he lay alone with his thoughts, imagining each breath, each heartbeat, was marking a countdown to the end of everything if he couldn’t solve his problem. No fear, though. He couldn’t remember ever feeling that. Just urgency and impatience.

  His nightly phone call over, David rolled his chair across the concrete floor to another makeshift table. This one held fifteen unopened boxes of various reagent kits for use with the genetic analysis system still boxed up beneath the table. The DNA sequencer and its dedicated computer controller—about the size of a medium office photocopying machine—was for processing the DNA samples he’d told Ironwood he’d start to collect for him.

  Now that he was able to work full-time, not in stolen evenings at the army lab, and now that he had the funds to buy openly from all genetic databases available, David anticipated the more rapid discovery of more clusters. To Ironwood, that meant more outposts. To David, it meant more chances to find others like him, and, most importantly, who among them had beat the odds—of all the cases he’d uncovered, none had yet. So finding more clusters meant more chances to find and turn off the genetic trigger that could kill him before he reached the beginning of the lethal interval, twenty-six years, six months.

  Less than three months left.

  Reason enough to get back to work now, resume his own investigation into his own genetic code.

  To that end, he’d set up his own mini supercomputer. Already, the dedicated computing power of the three networked Apple Pro towers exceeded what he’d been able to access using his own account in the armed forces lab. The new screens, too, were larger and brighter and easier on the eyes than his old ones. He’d confirmed that on a few twenty-four-hour marathons. Everything else about his new lab, though, was decidedly low-tech.

  His five worktables were nothing more than sheets of plywood on raw wood sawhorses. On the table with the screens, keyboards, and various drives, a gray and black rat’s nest of wires and cables cascaded over the back and down to his computers and their battery backup. In another corner, deep in shadows, were four other tables laden with unopened boxes of lab supplies, junk food, and several cases of Red Bull. The cot and a sleeping bag were for the rare nights when the Red Bull stopped working.

  He’d definitely reached that point now but doubted he’d be sleeping anytime soon. Ironwood’s late-night phone calls and sheer obstinacy were partly responsible for his insomnia. More to blame was the new genome display on the large computer monitor on his makeshift desk—his complete genetic pattern this time, not just that of his mitochondria.

  The genome on his screen told the story: The reality of his mtDNA results could not be denied. Fully 8 percent of his own DNA was nonhuman.

  As he paged through graph after graph of his genome, David chewed at his lip, thoughtful. At the army lab, when he’d discovered that the peculiarities of his genetic structure were shared by a handful of other people, those individuals had had no other obvious relationship with him or with each other. The only exception to that lack of connection had been a few whose families clustered together geographically.

  Those clusters had convinced David that the death sentence coded in his genes was a rare, recessive trait that his mother and father had carried, but on only one chromosome each. Both characteristics combined explained why his parents had lived past twenty-seven, and why the trait had persisted in the human population for so long without being identified as a medical threat.

  It had been some of his searches online for more information about those regions that had drawn Merrit’s and then Ironwood’s interest to him. When they’d offered to buy his data, he’d scrubbed the army files and sold the first three data clusters. By that time, he’d already realized he’d either make a discovery worth something even to the army—it wasn’t every day someone found nonhuman DNA in humans—or, with luck, he’d be dead before anyone could prosecute him. In any case, without the money, he’d be unable to do anything in time to save himself.

  While Ironwood wanted to believe the origins of those three clusters with nonhuman DNA were alien, to David it was a given they were not. So far, however, he’d been unable to come up with a plausible, testable, alternate hypothesis.

  So he’d decided to look next not just in the genetic profiles of other people but in those of other species, because Nature hoarded good ideas: If a particular sequence of amino acids accomplished something well in one life form, then the chances were strong the sequence would be conserved and passed on to other generations and, eventually, to other species.

  Just this morning, he’d set his computers to comparing his own genes with those in twenty-eight other species. Following established protocols, he’d included seventeen specific mammals, plus a platypus, reptiles, amphibians, birds, and fish. He wouldn’t know if he had a negative result until after his computers compared all the sequences, and that could easily take three days. A positive result, though, was a different matter. That could occur at any time, even with the first comparison.

  David stifled a yawn and stretched. Time to call it a night. He instructed his computer to text his phone whenever, and if ever, it found a positive match.

  He locked the metal exterior door and separate iron grate of his lab, then stepped out into the cloyingly humid August air. The evening’s earlier rain had brought no relief, and it felt like more was on the way.

  His black Jeep was one of three vehicles in the small parking lot edged on three sides by the converted warehouse. Another was a vintage Toyota truck that hadn’t budged since he’d moved in. The battered pickup looked to be dark green under its thick coat of grime and dust. Two cinder blocks propped up the chassis where a rear tire was missing. The third vehicle, an old maroon Ford Crown Victoria, had initially captured his attention because it was the same model he’d seen Army CID agents drive on their visits to the lab. There was no apparent schedule to its presence here; sometimes it was parked in space number 27, and sometimes not. Reassuringly, though, he’d never noticed it anywhere else he drove in the area. Not at the local fast-food outlets, nor at the nearby Holiday Inn where Ironwood had parked him at a discount corporate rate until his few possessions from Maryland could be shifted to a local apartment.

  David headed for his Jeep, pleased to hear only distant planes from the airport about a mile away, and the closer, faint electrical buzz of the lot’s single light pole—a light pole that only held a light. Unlike the lab in Maryland, there were no surveillance cameras here.

  He flicked the Jeep’s windshield wipers on once to clear the last of the evening’s rain, then drove out of the lot and onto the street, pausing briefly to check both ways. There was no traffic this time of night, only a cable van parked across the street. David made a mental bet it’d be on blocks when he returned tomorrow. This wasn’t a district for leaving vehicles unattended.

  He turned left, heading for the 24/7 McDonald’s nearest his lodging. A shake and two Big Macs sounded about right—that stupefying combination should stun him into dreamless sleep. It was not as if he had to worry about what cholesterol would do
to him at fifty.

  He switched on his radio and kept pressing SEARCH until a talk radio station came on. He really didn’t care what they were arguing about—any conversation was a better background noise than music, especially when he was working out problems. Someday he’d remember to get the kit that would let him plug his iPod into the Jeep’s radio. Then he could play his collection of environmental sounds: recordings of the background noise of actual places, buildings, outdoor settings. He enjoyed visualizing the layout of the place where each recording had been made. He’d always been able to “read” the echoes and reverberations. The exercise was calming.

  For now, though, he settled for talk radio, and he drove on while simultaneously following the political discussion on the air, trying to remember where he’d seen an Apple Store in Atlantic City for the iPod kit, and mulling over genes.

  What he didn’t do was realize that tonight, like every night for the past three weeks, he was still under surveillance.

  This time, not just by the air force.

  FOURTEEN

  The screen in the cable van tracked David Weir’s real-time position via a GPS beacon. Roz Marano had planted it.

  “He’s not going back to the hotel,” Chang said.

  “McDonald’s,” Lyle suggested. “There’s one on Rupert.” Weir ate like a horse.

  Chang nodded and entered the departure in his log.

  On another monitor, Lyle caught the flare of headlights in the converted warehouse’s parking lot. Too much of a coincidence for his liking. “The Crown Vic’s starting up. Run the tape back.”

  Chang brought up a different video display of the car now approaching the exit to the lot. Then, as that camera’s image continued live on the first screen, he made time run backward on the second.

  Lyle watched both screens until the Crown Victoria was out of range of the van’s cameras, heading in the same direction as Weir’s Jeep. On the playback screen, the Jeep backed into the lot, its headlights switched off, and Weir walked backward to his lab, unlocked the grate and door, then stepped back inside.

  Now nothing moved in the parking lot.

  Chang accelerated the reverse. After an hour of surveillance footage had sped by in two minutes, the conclusion was obvious.

  “Sir, the driver was already in the Crown Victoria. I should have swept the lot with infrared.”

  Lyle was already speed-dialing Roz.

  “Hey, boss.”

  “Road trip.”

  “Roger that.”

  Lyle’s right knee clicked audibly when he stood. “You’re here till the shift change. Keep the doors locked.”

  Chang patted the sidearm resting beside his log book. “Good to go, sir.”

  “Let’s hope not.” Lyle opened the back door and stepped into the night with relief. As hot as it was, it was cooler than in the van. A large jet roared by overhead, on an approach vector, landing lights captured in cones of glowing mist. Automatically, Lyle ID’d the twin-engined plane as an Airbus 319. He was good with planes.

  Lyle donned his installer’s ball cap before looking across the street to the warehouse lot. There were still lights on in unit 5. That one was leased by the owner of the Crown Victoria—Vince Gilden, who ran a used bookstore in Mays Landing and had rented this unit two weeks ago, apparently to house extra stock. As a matter of course, Lyle had had a full profile run on Gilden, but the man checked out. Lyle made a note to revisit that.

  Under a minute later, a black Intrepid turned the corner, stopped by the van, and Lyle got into the passenger side. Roz was at the wheel. She had a big grin for him.

  “We going to follow him?”

  Lyle tapped the nonstandard navigation screen in the center of the dash. The moving dot on the web of streets was Weir. A smaller, inset map showed the Intrepid’s current position.

  “No, we’re going to follow whoever else is following him.”

  Roz was intrigued. “That’s different. Has he got another agency tailing him?” Like every other member of his team, she liked to be in the middle of action, the wilder the better.

  “Doubtful. I think it’s the book dealer. Gilden.” Lyle fastened his seat belt and rocked back as Roz took off.

  “A civilian following our guy? Something’s up.”

  “Unfortunately.”

  Lyle touched his own sidearm in his shoulder holster for reassurance. It had been years since he had used it anywhere but on the qualifying range—but that, like all things so far in this case, could change.

  Waiting at a red light with no other cars on the road, David was tempted to call the radio station he was listening to and start a debate about what should be done about nonhumans walking among us. Just to see how quickly they’d hang up on him.

  The light turned green. By habit, he checked the road left and right. Up ahead. Behind—

  In his rearview mirror, he saw a car at the side of the road, maybe two hundred feet back, with its parking lights on. He’d just driven past that spot, and no car had been there.

  He started forward.

  In his rearview mirror, he saw the other car edge onto the road, its headlights still off.

  For a few moments, David lost sight of the other vehicle as the road ahead curved. When it straightened, the car was there again, hanging back. Headlights now on.

  He was being followed.

  Either he was in the wrong place at the wrong time and he was a random target, or he was in the right place at the right time for someone interested just in him.

  That decision tree was simple. Nothing he could do about army investigators. Even if he managed to elude them tonight, they’d be back. Casual crime? That was different. He had options.

  David changed his choice of destination. This early in the morning, McDonald’s wouldn’t have enough people to deter a mugging or carjacking. He flicked on his blinker. He’d take the Atlantic City Expressway back to the Holiday Inn and drive right into the well-lit lobby drop-off. Good-bye mugger.

  He made the next turn. The expressway overpass was clearly visible in the distance, its entrance and exit lanes picked out in lights.

  He rechecked his mirror.

  The car was still behind him.

  A flash of lightning, then window-rattling thunder.

  Up ahead slow-flashing orange lights smeared into halos on the windshield of the Jeep, and David pumped the brakes. The lights flanked signs warning that the expressway’s entrance ramps were closed. Other signs pointed to the next closest entrance. Great. Another five miles on deserted surface roads.

  He drove on past the blocked ramps, under the overpass.

  Then the Jeep died. Engine, headlights, windshield wipers, radio. All out. David coasted to the shoulder. The Jeep came to a full stop.

  A strobe of lightning, another roll of thunder. He looked in the rearview mirror. Saw no other car. Had the same thing happened to it?

  David put on the emergency brake, pressed the hazard light button. Nothing. He took a small penlight from the glove compartment and switched it on. At least that worked.

  He got out, grateful for the overpass above him sheltering him from the rain. On the off chance a battery cable had come loose, or something equally repairable, he pulled the hood up, confident he knew this engine well—4 liter, 6 cylinder, 12 valve, 190 horsepower. He could usually diagnose almost any trouble with it just from the way it sounded. Working on his Jeep was the closest thing he had to a hobby—doing something mechanical never failed to clear his mind.

  Penlight in mouth, David peered into the engine compartment. The battery cables were still in place. He tugged each one to be certain they were tight. Then stopped. A small twist of red and black wire was where it didn’t belong, running beside the bundled wires coming up from the alternator.

  David took the penlight from his mouth and aimed it at the wires. Three possibilities instantly came to mind: tracking beacon, bomb, or remote kill-switch.

  A new sound bounced off the concrete pilings of the underpas
s. The echo of a car approaching.

  David straightened up, recognizing the configuration of the headlights and the parking lights. The other car.

  It slowed, then pulled up behind his Jeep, motor idling.

  David stayed where he was, penlight shining onto the battery cables. He had a flash where he visualized his situation in the same way he did arrangements of genes and chromosomes—as if looking down from above. Saw his Jeep. The other car. Himself beside the Jeep. The door of the other car opening—

  “Having trouble?”

  The driver stood behind his open door, a silhouette in the glare of headlights. The voice was familiar.

  “I think the rain shorted out something,” David said.

  He heard the echo of another car. Coming from the opposite direction, driving slowly.

  “Need a lift to a gas station?”

  The driver was walking toward him. David recognized his face, didn’t know his name.

  “I’m Vince Gilden, by the way. You’re David, right? We’re neighbors. Back at the warehouse. I just moved into a unit at the back. We’ve said hello.”

  “The guy with all the books.”

  The driver smiled. “That’s me.”

  David nodded, pulse steady but hammering in his ears. He’d only said hello in passing. He’d never said his name.

  The second car was drawing nearer.

  “Let me try one thing first,” David said. He pocketed his penlight, throwing the Jeep’s engine compartment into shadow. “Could you brace this?”

  “Sure.” Gilden put his hand on the Jeep’s hood, at the same time darting a glance back at the car that was almost up to them. “Like this?”

  “Perfect. Now here, hold this for me.”

  Gilden held out his hand, and David shoved the positive battery cable into it.

  There was a sudden strangled cry, and sparks crackled from Gilden’s hands as his body completed the circuit through the Jeep’s metal frame and he flew back into the roadway.

  By then, David was already halfway up the steep concrete embankment leading from the road to the overpass. The surface of the concrete was untouched by the evening’s rain, and his Nikes gave him sufficient traction. He slammed to a stop behind a four-foot-wide piling, slowed his breathing, listening.