Germ

"You sure? My throat's a little sore. . . Maybe it's just the dehydration."

"No, it's this. You got a cold, friend." "But I thought you said—"

"What I have is no cold."

"But I caught a cold from you? You're not making any sense." He waited for a response, but Vero just turned his head to stare out the glassless side window. After a minute, he started fiddling with his Windbreaker. Donnelley thought the zipper was stuck, then he heard the material rip. When he looked, Vero was removing something that had been sewn into the lining. He held it up, a black sliver of plastic the size of a postage stamp.

"This will explain," he said. "I made it for the CDC."

Donnelley squinted at it and held out his hand. When Vero hesitated, he said, "If that's what got us both killed, you gotta let me hold it, man."

Vero placed it in Donnelley's palm.

"Is this a camera memory chip?"

"Like it, but much higher density."

Donnelley closed his fingers over it. "You want this to get in the right hands, you gotta let me have it."

Their eyes locked.

"I'll take care of it."

Vero nodded.

Donnelley dropped it into the inside pocket of his jacket. "But if I find out the only thing on it are pictures of your family reunion," he said, "I'll come after you."

Vero smiled weakly and turned away.

Donnelley glanced at the police-band radio. It dangled from its bracket under the dash, torn open and gutted. Looks like I feel, he thought.

They'd been driving a long time when Donnelley saw the sign that marked the Georgia-Tennessee border. Given the tenacity of their assailants, he half expected another attack: a fiery ambush or even sudden death from a military-type strike—an Apache attack helicopter or a LAW rocket, maybe. He wouldn't put anything past them after the barrage they'd just let loose on him and Vero.

Time to pull over and let Julia catch up. If he didn't get to a hospital soon, his life would simply drain out of him. But the prospect of letting his guard down on an operating table without someone he trusted standing over him was more nauseating than the lack of blood. Besides, if he was going to die for something, he wanted to make sure it got into the hands of the good guys—whoever they were.

Where I-75 branched east, Donnelley went west, onto I-24 and into the heart of Chattanooga. Green hills rose around them, and a humid, musky aroma of honeysuckle filled the car. For the first time in over an hour, he smelled something other than his own blood. He glided into an exit lane and found himself on Belvoir Avenue. Turning east on busy Brainerd Road, he spotted a good place to stop and cranked the wheel into a nearly deserted parking lot. He edged the war-torn sedan into an alley behind a brick building and killed the engine.

He stretched slowly, carefully, testing for aches and discovering which movements caused spears of pain from the wound. He found renewed strength, slightly, in having something to do. He shouldered the door open, the twisted metal popping and screeching. As he stood on shaky legs, he examined the rear of the building: lined with back doors, as he expected. He hoped the one he wanted was unlocked so they could slip in without being exposed to the main street. "Let's go."

"Go where?"

"A bar, my man. A dark, inconspicuous, everybody-minds-his-own-business bar. Last one in buys."

nine

The car was too close to the building for Despesorio Vero to open his own door, so he brushed away pellets of glass and clambered out the driver's side, staying high to avoid the crimson-drenched seat. Lots of blood, smelling like raw meat.

He got out of the car in time to see Donnelley disappear into the building. When Vero followed, he entered an office-cum-storage room. Boxes marked pretzels, Margarita mix, and napkins formed makeshift half-walls between steel shelves, file cabinets, and a desk barely visible under a heap of papers and magazines. Donnelley was apologizing to a man in a filthy smock and pushing through another door with a porthole window.

Vero caught the door swinging shut and saw another door closing on his right. A dingy emblem on the door depicted the silhouette of a little boy peeing into a pot. The rest of the bar was equally drab and tasteless. Dim bulbs behind red-tasseled lamp shades barely illuminated each of a dozen maroon vinyl booths, which marched along one wall toward the murky front windows. Chipped Formica tables anchored the booths in place. Opposite the row of booths was a long, scarred wooden bar with uncomfortable-looking stools. Behind the bar, sitting on glass shelves in front of a cloudy mirror, were endless rows of bottles, each looking as forlorn as the folks for whom they waited.