NINETEEN

"Nerve gas?"

 

Padgett was sleeping, fully encased in the new sleeping bag, stretched out by the dying embers of the fire. She left another six-pack of water and a resealable bag of beef jerky near his head.

She found the night vision goggles at B&H Photo, the same place she'd bought her binoculars.

"That's over three thousand after tax."

"You're paying for sensitivity and resolution," the clerk told her. "This is third-generation technology—much more sensitive to infrared. Wildlife will show up against the cold background like a torch."

The wildlife she was concerned about walked on two legs, but what showed up looked like nothing human.

Beyond the private beach sign, she saw a series of blotches in the scope, spread among the dunes. When she approached one of these from the land side, having jumped past it, she found it was a mostly buried video camera housing hidden in the dune grass, its little seven-inch antennae virtually invisible among the brown grass strands. She put one fingertip on top and found it slightly warmer than the surrounding air. Enough to show up. She was profoundly grateful she'd splurged for the best goggles in the store.

Hmph. No wonder Bob the security guard showed up to check me out.

She kept low and studied the surrounding dunes. She didn't see any more dots overlooking her current location but that didn't mean there weren't any more cameras. And they were probably all low-light devices, designed to pick up moving persons, day or night. She pursed her lips.

Tread softly. Take it slowly. Don't scare them off.

She jumped away, first to the Aerie to change clothes and leave the night vision goggles in their case, then back to the restaurant in the Winnetu, the Opus, where she ordered a ridiculously large dinner. She lingered over the meal, giving anybody who might be interested a chance to study her. When she was done she took the leftovers in a large takeout box back to her room.

She delivered them to Padgett followed by a fresh load of firewood. Five minutes later, when Padgett was hunkered down before the rebuilt fire and eating, the new sleeping bag wrapped around him like a shawl, she came back. "I particularly liked the bread with roasted garlic spread," she commented. She knelt down and extended her hands to the warmth, directly opposite him across the flames.

He glanced at her but didn't say anything. He went on to the Seared Langoustine and Foie Gras. At the first whiff of aroma from the Styrofoam box he froze, then looked up at her. "Nice. What restaurant?"

Oh, are we talking now? She studied him. His attitude had changed slightly. It was more casual and relaxed than just a moment before. It could be the food. No, the man had just started. Too early for a change in blood sugar. He looked like some of her clients when the topic on hand had strayed too close to something they didn't want to deal with. He was deliberately casual, artificially relaxed.

"That restaurant," she ventured. "On the south shore of that island. Just a mile down the beach from that house."

"I don't have the slightest idea what you're talking about," Padgett said, but it came too quick and he knew it.

She smiled broadly and Padgett threw up.

It was sudden and convulsive and titanic, seemingly everything in his digestive tract geysering into the fire.

Millie fell backward recoiling from the roiling cloud of steam and the smell. She scrambled back as the convulsions continued.

She stood, and came forward, hesitantly. Epilepsy?

Padgett was lying on his side now and his head was getting dangerously close to the fire. Rather than walk around him, she jumped to the far side and pulled his shoulders back. The spasms were continuing and, she realized, not limited to emesis. He'd voided his colon as well.

I've got to get him help. He's going to choke to death at this rate.

Unlike Davy, she didn't have a major trauma center jump site memorized. She'd never been anywhere near the one Davy used, the Adams Cowley Shock Trauma Center in Baltimore.

But I must've walked past the entrance to the ER at George Washington University Hospital a dozen times while I was putting up those stupid posters.

It took her a second to concentrate, no mean feat as Padgett thrashed at her feet, but she tried it and found herself on the sidewalk of New Hampshire Avenue, fifty yards away from the ambulance driveway where it cut through the building itself. She sprinted forward, up the drive, and went toward the door at the ambulance loading ramp. A hospital security guard stepped forward saying, "Whoa, Ma'am. You've got to go in the other—" But she dodged around him and twisted through the just-opening automatic door into the antiseptic smell of the trauma center. She heard footsteps as the guard hurried after her and a figure in blue scrubs positioned himself in her path, his hands raised.

She stopped, looking around, taking in the smell and feel of the site.

"Lady—you can't come in this door! It's for the trauma patients!"

She turned to face the security guard and gave him a level look that caused him to pause, one hand outstretched, apparently in the act of reaching for her arm.

She held up her finger and said, "Hold that thought, will you?" Then jumped.

Padgett had stopped vomiting but his breaths were coming in wheezes punctuated by short, barking coughs. She grabbed him under his armpits and jumped.

"Whoa—shit!"

In the few seconds she'd been gone, the security guard and the man in scrubs had walked forward to where she'd vanished. The security guard tripped over Padgett's legs and stumbled forward. The nurse or doctor dressed in scrubs fell backwards.

Other figures in scrubs came forward. Millie didn't know if they'd seen her disappear and reappear or any portion thereof but she didn't care. She just started talking.

"Five minutes ago he began vomiting and voided his bowels, accompanied by uncontrolled spasms. He just ate some seafood but he knew what he was eating and didn't mention any allergies. He's had a recent near-hypothermia experience but has been in a sleeping bag in front of a warm fire for the last eight hours. He was lucid and apparently fine right up to the first convulsion." She looked around at the staring faces. "Is anybody getting this?" She looked down at Padgett. "Oh, God—he's stopped breathing!"

That did it. Out came the masks and gloves. One shouted, "Possible code yellow!"

Millie stepped back and the whirlwind descended.

The security guard stayed with her, hovering, but he had put on one of the ear loop procedure masks just like the medical staff, and was pulling on latex gloves.

When she glanced at him, he flinched, so she said, "Let me guess, you'd rather I hung out in the waiting room?" She was feeling odd—disconnected.

The staff had lifted Padgett onto a gurney and one of them straddled Padgett's body on the table as he snaked an endotracheal tube down his throat, even as the others rolled the whole shebang into a room labeled "Resuscitation."

"The admissions clerk needs to get some patient info," the security guard said. It was hard to read his expression through the mask but he was still looking at her as if she had two heads and one of them would bite him. He gestured to a masked woman with a clipboard approaching from the door that led into the waiting room.

Millie made a soundless, "Ah," and turned to the clerk. "Do you want to do this in your office?

"We've got a room over here."

She led Millie off to the side, a room with a chair—more of a booth actually—separated from an adjoining booth by a glass window. The woman took the chair on the other side of the window after shutting Millie's door. She took off her mask and smiled through the glass before she started asking her questions through a two-way speaker.

Millie was patient. "His name is Lewis Padgett. I don't know his address. I don't know his social. I don't know his insurance provider. I don't know if he has any drug allergies or allergies of any other kind—he is not and was not wearing a med-alert bracelet. No, I cannot give you permission to treat—barely know the man, but since he is unconscious, I don't think you guys have to worry about that."

The woman wore a pained expression on her face. "We really need more information."

"I know a number you can call—I believe that they'll be able to give you all sorts of information about him. They will probably assume responsibility for him, too."

"Financial responsibility?"

"I don't know about that but at the very least they'll have his social security number." With trembling lips she gave the woman Special Agent Becca Martingale's cell number and her name, but not her title and employer.

"And your name, ma'am?"

Millie looked up. There were at least four video cameras in the trauma reception area. Shit, they've recorded me jumping! For a brief moment she considered finding the machines that recorded the video feed but she knew nothing about the technology. The security office could be anywhere in the entire massive cluster of buildings or, worse, off premises. There was no point in lying. She wished she'd at least had time to put on the wig and glasses before bringing Padgett in, but she was the short-haired blond in contacts. So much for that disguise.

"Millicent Harrison-Rice. Mention my name if Ms. Martingale has any doubts about the identity of your patient."

"And your address?"

"I'm not the patient and I'm not assuming financial responsibility," she said.

"Ma'am, I need this information. Mr. Padgett may be contagious. You could be exposed, not only in danger of contracting his disease yourself, but also of spreading it. You are required by law to give us this information!"

Well, who doesn't know our Stillwater address? After all, it was where she'd found Padgett and certainly the NSA had been there. Surely the FBI could figure it out—it was a matter of public record.

She gave the clerk the Stillwater address and phone and her work phone at the clinic though she doubted she'd ever be able to work there again after this night's work.

"But you're staying here in DC, I take it, someplace? A hotel? A friend."

"Oh, no." I commute. "Just got here. No local address."

"I'll give Ms. Martingale a call, why don't I," said the clerk when she'd taken down the info.

Millie expected her to go back to the admissions office adjacent to the waiting room but she simply reached below Millie's line of sight, picked up a phone handset, and dialed.

I should go. But Millie stayed. She wanted to know how Padgett was. No matter that he was her enemy, that he was one of those who'd taken Davy. She felt responsible for Padgett's current condition. She also wanted to know what was wrong with the man. She found it odd that he'd gone into convulsions the moment he'd actually revealed something to her. And then there was the possibility Padgett was carrying some kind of contagious disease. She wanted that cleared up. Typhoid Mary would have nothing on me as a disease vector. Millie pictured herself jumping from city to city, coughing and sneezing and leaving loci of infection strung behind her.

Better to know.

She could afford to wait—they didn't have much chance of stopping her when she did decide to leave, but this thought, initially comforting, suddenly sent a cold chill through the very core of her being. That's almost certainly what Davy thought right before they took him.

The admissions clerk's side of the phone conversation came clearly through the grill. "Ms. Becca Martingale? My name is Sarah Lewinski. I'm with patient intake at George Washington University Hospital. We just admitted a Lewis Padgett and we were told you could help us complete our intake information. You do know Mr. Padgett?"

"Well, a Ms. Millicent Harrison-Rice told us you might know more about him than she did."

"Yes, Ms. Harrison-Rice is right here. She brought Mr. Padgett in."

"Sorry, they just arrived. I don't know what Mr. Padgett's condition is. Can you help me with any of Mr. Padgett's information—his social or employer or insurance provider?"

Special Agent Martingale had apparently finished asking questions and was now talking at length, for the admissions clerk had her mouth shut and her eyes open. Then she said, "Yes, ma'am. I'll tell security immediately." She hung up the phone and said in a mildly accusatory tone to Millie, "You didn't say Ms. Martingale was an FBI agent."

Without waiting for a response she stepped out of the booth and called the security guard over. Millie couldn't hear what she said to him but when she was done talking, the guard unhooked his belt radio and began speaking into it as he headed back for the treatment room where they'd taken Padgett.

Millie started to step back out of her side of the interview booth to get an update on Padgett when a siren, previously distantly audible, suddenly swelled to a nearly earsplitting level as the vehicle entered the ambulance driveway. Fortunately the driver turned off the siren almost immediately but Millie could see blue lights bouncing off the walls. Her first thought was that an ambulance was delivering a trauma patient but that scenario was dispelled when four soldiers in hooded gas masks and full chemical warfare protective gear came through the door.

A doctor came running from the treatment rooms to meet them. Talking rapidly, he gestured first back toward the treatment rooms and then pointed directly at Millie.

What the hell?

Two of the soldiers followed the doctor back to treatment and the other two turned to Millie. She stepped back involuntarily as they approached.

The one in the lead waved an instrument the size of a large hardback with an off-center projecting nozzle and an LCD readout. He stepped into the other side of the isolation booth, the room the admissions clerk had used, and waved it around, watching the screen. After studying it for a moment he lifted the gas mask and shoulder draping hood up, revealing mild looking eyes and bifocal glasses. He used the speaker. "Good evening, ma'am. How are you?"

"Well, until you guys showed up in your gas masks, I was fine. Then I almost had a heart attack. Who are you and why are you here?"

"Ah. Well, my name is Sergeant Ferguson of the C/BRRT—the Chemical/Biological Rapid Response Team. We're here because the trauma center reported a possible occurrence of nerve agent."

"Nerve gas? Like sarin?"

"Or tabun or soman or VX. Or the most common is organophosphate pesticide, so it doesn't have to be something sinister. I'm going to put my mask back on and use this," he held up the instrument, "to check you and your clothing for any traces of nerve agent."

"Have you detected any out there yet?" She gestured at the room beyond the glass.

He smiled. "Not a trace, thank God."

She gestured. "By all means, check away."

He redonned his mask, did a quick check on the seal, and came over to her side of the booth, pushing the instrument through the door first. When it was apparently negative, he came on in. She stood as directed and he checked her from head to foot. He had her hold up her shoes one by one so he could check the soles and then exhale as he held the instrument before her mouth. This close, she could hear a small fan sucking air in through the nozzle.

From a pocket he pulled a charcoal gray foam packet with pressed seams and a Velcro closure, and set it on the counter. His voice, muffled by the mask, said, "You seem all clear, ma'am, but I'm sure they'll want you to stay in here until they've totally ruled it out or any biological agent."

He exited, consulted briefly with his associate, and went back into the other side of the booth. His mask back off, he smiled and said, "On the very long chance you've been exposed, I've left an antidote kit on the counter there. If you start salivating and your nose starts running, if you feel a pressure in your chest, if you have trouble focusing on close objects, or if you feel nauseated, sing out. If we're not immediately available, there are two autoinjectors in there—one has 2 mg of atropine, and the other has six hundred milligrams of 2-PAM, pralidoxime chloride. Remove the protective cap and press them into your thigh about four inches above your knee. Don't worry about your clothes—the autoinjector will push the needle right through, all right? Atropine first, 2-PAM second."

"You're scaring me, here."

"To be perfectly honest, I don't think you have a thing to worry about."

"Then why are you here?"

He grinned. "To make sure you don't have anything to worry about." He gestured back toward the trauma center. "I see why they called it in—your friend had several of the symptoms of acute nerve agent exposure. He was crashing—respiratory and cardiac failure—but he responded pretty well to atropine, but since atropine is good for a host of different problems it's not a definite indicator for nerve gas. It's just that we're less than half-a-mile from the White House here. That's why my little unit is on detached duty here in D.C. instead of back with the rest of the team up in Maryland. Better we should overreact a little—we've all seen the consequences of under-reacting.

"I'm going to check with my boss, Captain Trihn—he's in with the trauma team—and we'll know more. Specialist Marco there," he pointed to the other soldier outside, "will stay here. Let him know if you start experiencing any of the reactions I listed."

She nodded and he put his mask back on, then walked back up the hall toward the trauma theaters. The fact that he walked calmly, rather than trotted, reassured her more than anything he'd said.

A few minutes later Special Agent Becca Martingale entered the emergency room with a team of six agents—all neatly labeled F-B-I, in white letters across dark navy windbreakers. The medical staff apparently expected them, though her chemical warfare attendant, Specialist Marco, did a serious double take when he saw the shotguns three of them were carrying.

This is getting crazy. I should jump out of here. But she hesitated—there were things she wanted to know, both from the medical staff and from the FBI.

Becca gave Millie a nod as she passed, but clearly her first priority was securing Padgett. Millie almost wished she could be there when the different agendas of the medical staff, the FBI, and the C/BRRT all collided.

She stared at the packet Sergeant Ferguson had left with her. MARK I NERVE AGENT ANTIDOTE KIT. She shuddered. It didn't seem possible—not only had she been exposed to everything that Padgett had—they'd even eaten the same food—he'd been totally isolated. He did have his clothes. The old suicide capsule in a hollow button? She'd been watching him the whole time. The only thing he'd put in his mouth was the food she'd brought him—food she'd also eaten.

The walls of the isolation booth were closing in on her and she felt her heart beating faster. Oh, my god, I've got it, or it's got me. Her hand closed convulsively on the kit—then she forced herself to release it. Her hand was shaking.

Idiot.

She of all people should recognize the psychosomatic expression of physical symptoms. She wasn't salivating. Her mouth, if anything, was dry as a bone. Though if I obsess about it long enough, I'm sure I could express most of the symptoms the sergeant listed for me.

Her tension was relieved when the sergeant, himself, came back from the trauma theater. He'd stowed his gas mask in its belt case and his chemical oversuit was zipped open to the waist.

He opened her side of the isolation booth and picked up the antidote kit. "All clear, at least as far as we're concerned."

"Not nerve gas?"

"No traces on our equipment. They found an implant—some kind of vagus nerve stimulator—it's going haywire, apparently. There was a scar and they palpated a hard lump," he tapped his upper chest, just below his collarbone, "so they took a chest x-ray. The device and a wire going up his neck showed up on the film. They're pretty sure that's the problem."

Millie blinked. She'd seen the scar on Padgett, but considering the man's history, she'd thought it a war wound, from his days with Executive Outcomes. "Why would he have something like that?"

"The trauma surgeon said it's a treatment for some kinds of epilepsy and there's also some experiments with it in treating depression. But he says there's nothing in the literature about one doing this. If it's the FDA-approved implant, from Cyberonics, it should've failed completely rather than give the over-voltages that caused these symptoms."

"What do you think?"

He shrugged. "Don't know. My boss likes it. Captain Trinh is an MD—a toxicologist. He says vagal stimulation would account for the symptoms the patient did express and the symptoms he didn't." He tucked the antidote kit back in one of his pouches. "So, we're standing down—the Secret Service was very relieved." He rolled his neck around. "We were ninety percent sure when we got here, actually, but we went through the whole nine yards, though, because of the hallucinations."

"Hallucinations? Padgett was seeing things?"

"No. The patient has never been conscious. Some of the staff seemed to be seeing things, though, so we thought there was some kind of nerve agent involved and enough on him to contaminate the first responders. They said you disappeared, then reappeared with the patient." He smiled. "Might be working too hard. Either that or admin needs to inventory the drug cabinets."

Millie smiled weakly. "So I can leave this booth?"

"As far as I'm concerned. The captain and the attending seem pretty sure it's not biological, either. But the FBI might want to talk with you. Wonder why they're here?"

"Didn't they tell you?"

"Maybe they told the captain. I'm just a working man."

"Padgett—the patient—was involved in the attempted kidnapping of two women here in D.C., last week. The FBI were watching and when they moved in, he shot an agent to escape."

"Get outta here!"

"No, really."

"I didn't read anything about that. How did you hear about it?"

"I was one of those women," she said. "What are they going to do for Padgett?"

"Pull the implant, I believe. They were prepping him and waiting for a neurosurgeon to come over from the next building."

"And if he's epileptic?"

"Doesn't matter. The thing will kill him if it keeps firing like it is. Better seizures than dead. He survives, he can get a new implant that works right."

Maybe it is working right. Millie shuddered. "Well, thanks for proving it wasn't nerve gas."

Sergeant Ferguson nodded and, as he turned away, he said, "I wouldn't have it any other way. I get nightmares as it is."

Special Agent Becca Martingale joined Millie shortly after the Rapid Response Team pulled out.

She looked Millie up and down and frowned. "So, changing the image?"

"The hair, you mean?"

Becca nodded. "Yeah, and you got rid of the glasses—contacts?"

Millie nodded. "They're still after me. That's how I got Padgett. They set a trap for me and it didn't quite work."

Now that the FBI had arrived, the security guard was back by the door and watching her warily. Millie wondered if he'd told Becca about Millie's odd arrival. Becca saw Millie glance at the guard and said, "You want coffee? I want coffee."

Millie waited until they were walking down the hall outside ER before asking her first question. "What about Sojee Johnson?"

Becca sighed. "Sojee? Ah, I get it. Still no sign of Ms. Sojourner Truth Johnson. It would be very nice if we got something out of Padgett."

"He wouldn't talk for me. Will you be able to talk to him? Last time I saw him, he wasn't even breathing on his own."

"He was conscious a minute ago—confused. They think he'll be okay. You know about the implant?"

She nodded. "The Chem Warfare guy told me."

"Well, they were getting ready to cut when they kicked me out. They decided not to wait for the neurosurgeon. Instead, the attending is gonna make a small incision and simply cut the leads between the implant capsule and where the electrodes wrap around the vagus nerve. Where did Padgett set this trap you speak of?"

Millie swallowed. "Remember that we didn't tell you what Davy—my husband—did for the NSA?"

"Indeed. Anders said it was burn-before-reading secret, though from some of the context, I got that he was some sort of covert ops insertion specialist."

Millie shrugged. "That'll do to tell."

"What's that have to do with my question?"

Millie inhaled and held her breath while she studied Becca's face, motionless. She felt like a deer, frozen in a car's headlights. Finally, in one explosive exhalation, she said, "Do you remember the last time you saw me?"

Becca tilted her head. "Sure, it was on Fourteenth Street after they tried to snatch you. I ran up the alley when Padgett shot Bobby—uh, agent Marino."

Millie shook her head. "No. You last saw me on the roof of that Medical Building over in Alexandria. The one near Bochstettler and Associates." She felt in her jacket pocket and found the sunglasses she'd been wearing that day. "I don't have the baseball cap with me," she said, putting the shades on, "or the green plastic chair, but surely you remember."

Becca's eyes widened. "That was some trick. I nearly had a heart attack when you went over the edge. Want to tell me how you did that?"

I would love to. Millie felt like crying, suddenly. "Can't."

Becca stopped dead and looked at Millie with a sour expression on her face. "Did you ever hear the story about the blind men and the elephant?"

Millie nodded, not trusting herself to speak.

"How do you people expect me to do my fucking job! You won't tell me anything and then you stop trying and then I get pressure to shelve the entire investigation. Don't you want to find your husband and Ms. Johnson?"

"Are you talking about the NSA when you say 'you people?' " Millie felt her face go tight.

"Yeah."

"Well, I don't work for them, all right? Please don't lump me in with them. I know they've dropped the investigation—or at least they took Anders off of it. I won't go anywhere near them. I went to ground because whoever is behind this has somebody inside the NSA—they nearly got me again that same night, after I holed up in a motel out in Alexandria. The NSA delivered me to that hotel—they were the only possible leak."

Becca's normally calm demeanor was back in place and she began walking again. "You could've been followed."

"Cows could fly."

"So, who are you working for."

"Me, myself, and I. I'm looking for my husband, dammit!"

Becca looked skeptical. "Someone trained you, dear. That rooftop stunt was not the work of an amateur. We searched those stupid shrubs for an hour looking for your body."

Millie blinked, then her jaw dropped. "You think I'm an operative!"

"How else do you explain it?"

"Nerve gas?"

Becca was not amused.

"I've a master's degree in Psychological Counseling and I'm a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist in the state of Oklahoma, which requires lots of ongoing professional development coursework. I also did a two-year stint of supervised counseling before becoming licensed. I took a Community Ed class in African dance last summer and I've read extensively in the novels of John Le Carré. That is the extent of my training."

They turned the corner to the cafeteria. A metal grill blocked the entrance. According to the posted hours, it had just closed.

"Shit!" Becca said. "Explain the rooftop thing, then."

Millie licked her lips and told the truth. "I jumped." She saw the sour expression return to Becca's face and said, "Wait." She looked up and down the corridor. It was empty. "Okay. I'm going to show you how I did the rooftop thing." She jumped to the other side of the hallway, about eight feet behind Becca. She watched the agent frantically swivel her head left and right, then up and down. Millie cleared her throat and Becca spun around, one hand diving into her windbreaker, then freezing again as she saw Millie.

Becca's mouth worked for a moment before she managed to say, "Hypnosis?"

Now that's an idea. She sighed. "No. Not hypnosis." I am so tired of lying. "You still want coffee?"

 

It was after sunset, but only just, in San Francisco. Millie jumped Becca to the Yerba Buena Garden outside of the Metreon, then caught her as the woman's knees gave way, guiding her to the grass. By the time Millie returned from the Starbucks on the first floor of the Metreon, Becca had mostly recovered, though she wasn't standing yet.

She accepted the coffee without comment.

"Do you recognize where you are?"

Becca pointed at the massive fifty-foot-high waterfall fountain of the Martin Luther King memorial at one end of the grassy plot, then north at Saint Patrick's Church. "I've been here before. Even this Starbucks." She stood, moving gingerly. "How do you do this?"

Millie shrugged. "I don't really know. It suffices that I can."

Becca's eyes narrowed suddenly. "Is this what Davy does for the NSA?"

"Right."

"But not you?"

Millie shook her head. "No."

Becca slapped her hand to her forehead. "Oh, my God. The foiled hijackings—ten years ago! Those airliners and the cruise ship. That was Davy? Or was it you?"

Millie's first instinct was to deny everything but she sighed instead. "Davy. Not me. This... is new to me."

"What else can you do?"

"I've given you my other qualifications. Are you in a relationship with problems? Do you have any childhood issues you want to work on? Then I'm your guy."

"Nothing else in a paranormal ability?"

"I can hang a spoon off the end of my nose."

Becca stood and took a pull on her coffee. Her brow was furrowed and she kept her eyes on Millie but didn't say anything for several seconds.

Millie said, "I wanted you to know so that when I started answering your questions, you wouldn't think the answers as crazy as they sounded."

Becca nodded. "So go ahead."

"I caught Padgett at my condo in Stillwater, Oklahoma. I think they suspect I can do this—teleport—because he filled my rooms with some sort of anesthetic vapor. I barely got out but I returned in time to see him check the trap." She neglected to mention how long ago that was. "I was asking him about Davy and he went into convulsions. It was weird—he'd just let something slip and BAM, like a spy taking cyanide or something, only, I swear, the only thing he'd put in his mouth was food I brought him."

"Brought him? Was he your prisoner?"

"He was my guest, briefly. Wait a second." She jumped to the Aerie.

As she wandered back to the low table where she'd examined Padgett's belongings, she unexpectedly slipped and dropped to one knee, to keep from falling. There was a puddle on the floor, its edges clearly drying, but a good half inch of water caught in one of the natural depressions in the floor. Her knee was soaked where she'd touched down.

She looked around, surprised. The cistern was thirty feet away and it was certainly too much water to have come from a spilled glass. She looked up, at the ceiling, looking for some sign that the water had oozed in from the ridge above, from a rare desert thunderstorm, perhaps, or a subterranean aquifer, but the stone above was dry and unbroken.

The front door was latched and everything seemed to be as she'd left it, including the collection of Padgett's belongings. She gathered them up and returned to San Francisco.

Becca jerked as she reappeared.

Millie handed her the plastic bag. "You okay? You look a little pale."

"I was just trying to think how the hell I was going to explain this to my boss without getting sent in for psych review. Then I started worrying about what would happen if you left me here three thousand miles from D.C. What's this?"

"It's the stuff Padgett had on him. Wallet, some fake ID, his guns. I handled them." She'd left Padgett's cell phone back in the Aerie. She was going to hold those phone numbers to herself for now.

"What did Padgett let slip? You know, right before he started barfing?"

"A clue. Something that confirmed another lead—like saying 'hot' or 'cold.' Sort of 'getting warm.' I'm not going to tell you, though. I want Davy out of there, first. Besides—now that you have the guy who shot your agent, are you going to go any further? Don't tell me you haven't gotten any pressure. The NSA's doing their best to pretend Davy never existed. Are they telling you anything?"

"I had a brutally brief talk with Anders when they reassigned him. The only thing I've gotten out of his replacement is questions."

"Questions?"

"Well, one question, asked several times."

Millie waited. You know you want to tell me.

"They wanted to know if I'd seen you."

It was warmer in San Francisco than it had been in D.C., but Millie shivered.

Becca's cell phone went off, surprising both of them.

"National call plan?"

Becca nodded. She punched the button and said, "Martingale." She listened for a moment and her eyes widened. "Jesus! One second." She covered the mouthpiece. "Can you get me back to the ER?"

"Sure."

Martingale talked back into phone. "I'll be right there." She disconnected and looked at Millie. "Padgett's dead."

"Dead? They said he was stable! Didn't cutting the leads on his implant stop the convulsions?"

"They'll never know. When they cut the leads, the implant exploded."

 

She jumped Becca to the sidewalk outside the ER.

"I've been around here too long," Millie said. "The NSA will be here soon. Maybe Padgett's people. Hell, I'm not convinced that Padgett's people aren't the NSA."

Becca paused, looking back, obviously torn. "You've got my number, right? You're the one who gave it to the hospital?"

"Yeah. I got it from Anders, though it would probably get him in trouble if they knew I was still talking to him."

"You are?"

"Sort of. E-mail. On the sly."

"I understand. His last talk with me was like that: a little more frank than his employers would probably like. Call me in an hour?"

Millie nodded and jumped. She went back to the hotel room in the Winnetu and lay in her bed, kicking around until the sheets were well disturbed. For good measure she took a shower and changed clothes. She thought it was a long shot, but after her encounter with the security guard on the beach, they might check her out. They might slip a five to the chambermaid to ask if there was anything odd about her.

So, mess the bed and the bathroom, give them evidence of occupation. And if they call the room when you're not there, say, in the middle of the night? Let them think she was shacking up with one of the radiologists. Hell, let them think she was working her way through the entire roster of symposium doctors. Well, they'd have dirty minds, then.

She felt a stirring of desire. It's been too long. Who really has the dirty mind? She unplugged the phone and conspicuously coiled it on top of the bedside table. Let them think I don't like having my sleep disturbed.

The puddle of water in the Aerie was smaller when she checked on it. Again, except for the water, everything seemed untouched. She checked the door and scanned the canyon floor below. Nothing.

Could it have been Davy?

If he could jump as far as the Aerie, why wouldn't he have stayed?

She used a pay phone at D.C.'s Union Station. Becca, barely audible among a background torrent of other voices, asked Millie to hold a moment. When she spoke again, the background sounded different, much quieter.

"Sorry. Couldn't hear anything in there. Got the D.C. Metro bomb squad in and—you predicted it—two guys from the NSA. I've told them I don't know where you got to. It's the truth, after all."

"Thanks. How big an explosion was it?"

"Well, it only killed him, though the attending doctor's arm looks like it was hit by a ball-peen hammer. They found the remains of two U.S. Military M6 blasting caps among the fragments of the rest of the implant."

"You autopsied already?"

"No—the trauma team tried to save him, they were pulling the debris out of his chest as they tried to clamp all the leaks. They were gonna try and put him on a heart-lung machine. It was too much, though, even with them right there. He hemorrhaged like a sieve." She sighed. "Guy from the bomb squad recognized the blasting cap fragments—you can still see the leads. Some implant, huh?"

"Why?"

"Well, he'll never testify about his organization now. Myself, I'd prefer a simple nondisclosure agreement."

Millie felt like throwing up. "Puts a different meaning on 'cross my heart and hope to die.' I killed him, didn't I?"

"Whoa, girlfriend. You put that thing in him?"

"If I'd just left him alone—"

"Like he left you alone?"

Millie didn't say anything for a moment. "I wonder if all of his people have them. I don't suppose any of those other guys you arrested on Fourteenth Street have scars under their collarbones?"

Becca was silent for a moment. "Now that's a scary thought. I doubt it, though. When we processed them in they went through the usual metal detectors and wand scans. Still, I'll call over and see what got put in 'scars and marks' on their booking sheets."

Millie said, "They might not know enough to warrant the implant. Maybe only the upper echelon get it."

"People who know something worth telling?"

"Those who know who their boss is."

A name she thought she could supply.