While the rest of the passengers were busy jostling for their luggage, Lino sat quietly. Where could they go? All this rushing and jockeying for position—as if it would get them off the plane any sooner. You could almost hear them bleat as they waited impatiently in the aisle. But soon, very soon, you would hear them moaning, begging for death.
Oh, how Lino wished he could see their overanxious faces then. The young man surveyed the passengers around him, counting them off in his head. One, two, three, four. If this contagion did its job, one of those four would be dead. He counted another set and studied their faces. Not one of them thought that they were going to die within the next week. Many of them would spread the Black Death to those closest to them. They would know the horror of watching their families and friends fall sick around them.
Finally, the hatch opened, and the sheep began their exit. Lino waited until the knot had dispersed, and then, making certain his hand was moist, he dragged his palm along the top of the seats. One could never be too thorough. This task was too important to leave anything to chance.
Once inside the terminal, Lino was struck with how quiet and still the huge concourse was in the early-morning hours. Almost churchlike. A cough from one of the exiting passengers echoed off the high ceilings. Lino felt a great sense of satisfaction course through him. It was so rewarding to see your handiwork come to fruition.
He was so preoccupied by his sense of fulfillment that he almost missed the unscheduled contact. Anyone else would have passed by the security guard unaware, but Lino could see in the woman’s eyes that she had a soul who could watch millions drop around her, and she would stand unflinching. Here was one of his own.
Diverting his course, he approached her, flavoring his English with more accent than his cultured education usually allowed. “Madame, can you direct me to this gate?” he asked, showing her his ticket to Los Angeles. She took the document and studied it before she answered.
“Of course, sir,” she responded and raised her arm to point to the left. The casual action pulled back her sleeve, revealing three short lines of tattooed symbols on her wrist. Tattooed, not carved. She was an acolyte, not yet anointed. Despite his disdain for her rank, the guard still served her purpose. He scanned the message again, but it still did not make sense. He was supposed to fly to the West Coast in order to spread the plague from both shores. His eyes flickered to hers, asking the unspoken question.
“You’d best hurry, sir, or you’ll miss your flight.”
The guard handed him back his ticket. Only it wasn’t his ticket. So there was no mistake. The plan had changed. Another challenge.
“Good luck,” she said before she walked away.
Lino straightened his back. He would need no luck. He was anointed in blood. He was chosen. But this was no time to rest on his laurels. He had a connecting flight to El Paso to catch.
CHAPTER 7
Plum Island
9:19 a.m., EST
“Dr. Rolf?” a voice asked.
Amanda started awake, jerking her face off her pile of papers. Unfortunately, one CIA briefing had become glued to her lip by dried saliva. And of course, Dr. Henderson was at her door.
“Yes, sir,” she said, not knowing why she nearly saluted. It must have been the nearly seventy-two hours without any real sleep.
“I need you to pack up,” he said as he brought his tall, wide frame into her tiny, cramped office.
If his presence had not awakened her, his words certainly did. She scrambled to walk back her previous wild theory. Make that wild theories. As much as her new post intimidated her, she did not want to leave so soon.
“Sir, if you will just let me explain—”
He shook his salt-and-pepper head. “Just pack.”
How Amanda hated being the damned harbinger of doom. Why had she forced her conjectures on her new boss? Why? She glanced out to her assistant’s desk to find Jennifer packing as well.
At least they could walk out of the building together.
She opened her mouth to argue, but then shut it again. There was no point. By the set of Henderson’s shoulders, she could tell his mind was made up.
Sagging under the weight of exhaustion and humiliation, Amanda bent her head. “And whom should I forward all of my data to?”
“Forward?” Henderson asked.
Oh, God. They didn’t even want her data? Great. She would be transferred to Michigan to root out Starry-Eyed Duck Syndrome.
“I’ll just gather my stuff,” she mumbled, rising as she opened her desk drawer. “Do you want security to escort me out?”
Henderson squinted his bloodshot eyes. “What in damnation are you talking about?”
Amanda’s eyes shifted from Henderson to her assistant at the door. Jennifer’s arms were overloaded with files as she balanced a three-hole punch and stapler under her chin. If they were being fired, Amanda doubted they were going to let Jennifer take off with the best three-hole punch on the island.
“I’m not fired?”
Breath whistled through Henderson’s pinched nose as he shook his head. “Clearly, you haven’t heard.”
“Heard?” Amanda parroted, not knowing what else to say.
“The first American case of the plague.” Henderson grabbed a remote control off her desk and turned on the overhead screen. “Reported at 9:18 this morning.”
Amanda gulped as Henderson flipped through several channels, all reporting the same thing. “The plague is here.”
She looked back at her boss. “Where?” she asked, not needing to qualify where she meant.
“A passenger off a flight from Venice.”
Amanda sat down. Hard.
“We are moving you from these offices to the main conference room, where you’ll have another dozen assistants to shift through all of the data,” Henderson said, but Amanda barely heard him.
Being a harbinger of doom was bad.
Being right? Even worse.
* * *
Quirk stood on his tippy-toes trying to spot Ronnie. Why did she always do this? Wait until the last conceivable moment to board? After all, she had left the cold room at what, 10:00 last night? While he had been up half the night rooting through the carnage of their near miss. Besides, just assessing the damage done, he had to reassure himself that the components could indeed be fixed. He had the knowledge. He had the technology. Making sure his cyber babies kept a positive mental attitude could be time-consuming.
Quirk had fallen asleep between a CPU and a high-speed router. Then at the crack of dawn, he was up, shipping the myriad of components to the States. Even the ones damaged beyond repair would go home for a proper burial.
He looked down at the tickets. 10:00 a.m. He looked at his watch. Nine-forty. As he was searching the crowd, a man bumped right into him, and then stayed there. Quirk glared down at the squat Mexican, but he didn’t budge.
“Um, el personal-o space-o?” Quirk asked, but the man just stood there. Having no greater depth of the Spanish language, it was he who moved to the left to get some breathing room.
Well, not exactly breathing room. The airport was crammed with under-bathed Latin Americans. The stench was so thick that Quirk remembered why he had started to develop nose plugs that could pass as fashion accessories. And given that body odor was a product of bacterial growth, he didn’t like to be uncouth, but Ay, chihuahua! These people were walking pathogen factories.
Which reminded him…
Despite that he was anxious to find Ronnie, Quirk checked his phone.
It is here was still the last text from his CDC BFF. The plague. It had reached North America. New York, in fact. How long until the Black Death cast its long shadow down Mexico way?
Quirk turned to the television screen. All morning long, they had been running plague reports. Granted, these were in Spanish, but Quirk could spot a boil in any language. This show was obviously going over the early signs of the disease. With practiced routine, he went through the checklist.
Fever. Nope.
Sub-mandibular lymph nodes enlarged? Nope.
Blackened patches of skin? Nope.
The patient on the screen stuck out his tongue. It was covered with the worst yellow film. Yellow film? Quirk nearly panicked. Jennifer hadn’t informed him that was one of the early signs! He hadn’t checked it in the mirror this morning. He would have to give Jennifer, his CDC BFF, a scolding—that is, once he found someone to check his tongue. Quirk glanced left, then right. Where was Ronnie when he needed her? He turned back to the rotund gentleman.
“Excuse me?”
“No hablo inglés.”
“No kidding,” Quirk said, glancing around the crowd. No one looked especially inglés equipped. So he stuck his tongue out at the man, mumbling, “Yellowo filmo?”
“Really, Quirk, you need to work on your pickup lines.”
He turned back to find his boss right behind him. Quirk kept his tongue out, slurring his words. “Is it yellow?”
Ronnie just shook her head. “Seriously, Quirk, butch up.”
She came this late, and then gave him attitude? “Where have you been?” he demanded.
“Buying our tickets.”
“Are you sun-addled?” Quirk asked as he pulled the travel documents out of his very stylish leather bag. “I’ve got them right here. I always have them right here.”
“Yeah, to Acapulco, but we’re going to Ciudad Juarez,” Ronnie said as the crowd dispersed and boarding began.
Quirk tilted his head. Geniuses could be so damn exasperating. “Is this a real place, Ronnie, or one you made up in your head?”
“We’re going to Ciudad Juarez.”
“No. Real or not, we are going to Acapulco,” Quirk insisted.
An airline employee nodded toward them. “Señor. Señorita. You board?”
Quirk put a finger up to “hold” the employee as he turned to Ronnie. “Ciudad Juarez wouldn’t happen to be anywhere near El Paso, Texas, would it?”
Ronnie tried to look innocent, but it didn’t come naturally to her. “In the general vicinity.”
Oh, he was pissed! After everything that happened last night, Ronnie wasn’t just now learning that they had to think with their big heads. “This is about him, isn’t it?”
Ronnie gave up on her attempt at naïveté and threw up her hands. “Fine. Go to Acapulco. I’ll catch up with you in Los Angeles.”
“Has it even occurred to you that he is setting you up? That he’s luring you there?”
Ronnie was right back in his face. “How do you even know that he asked me?”
Quirk pulled out the ultimate gay power move—the hand on the hip. “Because you talked to him last night.”
“You hung up on—”
“No,” he said firmly. The charade was over. The “don’t ask, don’t tell” phase of this little flirtation was over. “You talked to him after you got back to the hotel room.”
“What?” She actually sounded flustered, but his boss must have seen the truth in his eyes. He wasn’t bluffing. “I mean, how would you—”
“Darling, did you really think you could spend forty million dollars to develop a point-to-point communications device without me knowing about it?”
Ronnie started backpedaling. Obviously, this was not how she expected this conversation to go. “I just—”
He showed his palm. “Don’t.” He lowered his hand. “We’ll deal with my hurt feelings over being left out, excluded, dissed, and all the abandonment issues this brings up for me later. Right now, I just need you to get your lack-of-squats ass on that plane.”
“I can’t.” Her eyes pleaded with him to understand. “I’m going to meet him.”
Even though the airline employee hovered just out of hearing range, the two stood in strained silence. Ronnie had lied to him. She was jeopardizing both of their lives, and didn’t even have the courtesy to inform before the fact. In Buffy’s immortal words, “Love, man, it makes you do the wacky.” Well, it was Quirk’s job to de-whack her.
“You do realize that Mexico has a well-enforced extradition treaty with the United States?”
But Ronnie stood her ground. “Yes, I do. But just like you risk the White Party every year, I’ve got to do this.”
“Excuse me, but last call,” another gate employee said with a thick accent.
Quirk picked up his bags and looked Ronnie squarely in the eye. “Go to your doom. I’m going to the land of bronzed men.”
Ronnie just gazed downward, so he turned away from her. But that wasn’t all he had to say. “And, just so you know, had I developed the technology rather than you outsourcing it, the music wouldn’t skip every time you made a call.”
Seriously, what was she doing trying to have a meaningful relationship with Dudley Do-Right, no matter how hot he was? With a burst of self-righteous anger and great aplomb, Quirk strode onto the plane, heading for anonymous sex.
* * *
Francois pretended to sleep. It was not difficult, since the doctor had heavily sedated him to keep him from injuring himself. But there had been no need. The symbols were etched. His task was documented. Until he could burn that damnable Picasso, there was no need to further cut himself. But the agents could not fathom this fact, so they kept a sharp eye on him. They constantly monitored his every movement.
That is, until now. Now the gaggle of agents was clustered around the television. The broadcast drifted across the room. It seemed that the first case of the bubonic plague had crossed the pond. The bull pen was abuzz with anxiety, fear, and excitement.
Americans. Francois snorted before he could stop himself, and then had to cover his action—as if he were just snoring. But the Americans were just so damned arrogant. So certain that an ocean on either coast would keep all danger away. It hadn’t worked in either Great War, and it didn’t work this time.
Those who were afraid had every right to be. Most likely, they were men or women with children. The Black Death always took a heavy toll, but its most caustic effects were upon the young. Those who were excited were just blasted fools. There was no fighting this plague. No amount of sharpshooting could stop the bacterium from rolling across the country unchecked.
Francois had a difficult time hearing the entirety of the report, as some agents were busy theorizing out loud, while the rest were shushing them. But truly, the Frenchman didn’t need to hear the details. He knew enough.
The first case had been diagnosed in a woman who had just arrived in New York from Venice. It could mean only one thing.
The Hidden Hand was here.
He was here.
Francois did not have much time left.
* * *
Ronnie had to shove hard to get her bag into the overhead compartment. She’d packed her entire wardrobe for this little sojourn. Not that she had any idea what she was going to wear. In her line of work, she didn’t have much reason to get all gussied up. She looked over her shoulder down the long aisle. No Quirk. His plane had taken off over three hours ago. He was probably touching down in Acapulco right about now, but damn, she could use the gay gene right about now.
Realizing that she was holding up the final boarding, Ronnie sat down in her seat and pulled out a Cosmopolitan she’d bought in the terminal. It was in Spanish, but she got the gist fairly well. To get a man, you had to look like a caffeinated model and be a sex goddess. She did not have either strength going for her. Flipping through the pages, Ronnie became very aware of exactly how little she had going for her. Bulimia was suddenly becoming a lifestyle option.
A commotion toward the front of the plane pulled her attention away from the magazine. Come on, she thought. They were already fifteen minutes behind because of mechanical difficulties, which was cutting into her panic time. She wanted to get to the bar early and have a few margaritas before Zach arrived. If you were going to get horribly rejected, it was best to do it slightly toasted.
Then she heard an ever-so-effeminate voice whine, “But this is an emergency!�
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It couldn’t be! But there was Quirk, hands full of shopping bags trying to squeeze past the flight crew. They were never going to let him on with all those carry-ons, but Quirk leaned into the flight attendant’s ear and whispered something to make her blush. Still flustered, the woman let him by. If her assistant ever turned his sights toward conquering the females, he would have it made.
After a dozen “sorrys,” Quirk was at her row. She couldn’t hide her relief.
“I thought you had your heart set on a cabana boy?”
“Somebody’s got to protect you from yourself.”
Ronnie laughed for the first time in this nerve-racking day. “Yeah, right. You realized if Zach did show up and didn’t arrest me, that he’d be looking mighty fine.”
Quirk held up his phone and snapped a picture. “You’re going to want to capture the memories.” He looked down at the screen, and then at her. “You aren’t seriously going to wear that, are you?”
Under his critical gaze, Ronnie squirmed, but was luckily rescued by the flight attendant, who urged him to stow his numerous bags in the overhead compartment.
“More phones?” Ronnie teased, but Quirk raised an eyebrow as he opened one of the bags.
Her assistant pulled out the skimpiest of skimpy red dresses, then another in black, and another in dark purple.
“Sweetie, if he is going to risk getting fired or even imprisoned for meeting you, then I am going to make sure that he doesn’t regret it.”
* * *
Zach pulled out the black turtleneck from his bag. Too pretentious. Too George Clooney. Although…Damn it, but guys on the cover of GQ were usually wearing one. He shoved the garment back in the bag. It was always good to keep your options open.
He stared at the box of condoms on the nightstand. The pack was brand spanking new. Its plastic wrap was still intact. Jesus, if he brought them along, would it make him look like a hound dog? Would Ronnie get the mistaken impression that sex was the only reason he had wanted to meet her? But what was the other option? If things did go according to plan, would they find some run-down, all-night pharmacy south of the border?
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