“The vaccine won’t be through clinical trials for at least four months, even on emergency fast track. Shawbeck and the VP are taking a new policy to the White House this evening. We’re recommending quarantine. It’s a good bet we’re going to need to invoke some sort of martial law to enforce it.”

Dicken sat down again. “Unbelievable,” he said.

“Don’t tell me you haven’t thought about this,” Augustine said. His face was gray with strain.

“I don’t have that kind of imagination,” Dicken said bitterly.

Augustine swiveled to look out the window. “Springtime soon. Young men’s fancy and all that. A really good time to announce segregation of the sexes. All women of child-bearing age, all men. OMB will have a ball figuring out how much this will slow down the GNP.”

They sat in silence for a long moment.

“Why did you lead with Kaye Lang?” Dicken asked.

“Because I know what to do with her,” Augustine said. “This other stuff…Don’t quote me, Christopher. I see the necessity, but I don’t know how in hell we can survive it, politically.” He pulled another print from the folder and held it up for Dicken to see. It showed a man and a woman on a porch in front of an old brownstone, illuminated by a single overhead light. They were kissing. Dicken could not see the man’s face, but he dressed like Augustine and had the same physique.

“Just so you don’t feel bad. She’s married to a freshman congressman,” Augustine said. “We’re finished. Time for all of us to grow up.”

Dicken stood outside the Taskforce center in Building 51, feeling a little ill. Martial law. Segregation of the sexes. He hunched his shoulders and walked to the parking lot, avoiding the cracks in the sidewalk.

In his car, he found a message on the cell phone. He dialed in and retrieved it. An unfamiliar voice tried to overcome a real antipathy toward leaving messages, and after a few false starts, suggested they had mutual acquaintances — two or three removed — and possibly some mutual interests.

“My name is Mitch Rafelson. I’m in Seattle now but I hope to fly East soon and meet with some people. If you’re interested…in historical incidents of SHEVA, ancient examples, please get in touch with me.”

Dicken closed his eyes and shook his head. Unbelievable. It seemed everyone knew about his crazy hypothesis. He took down the phone number on a small notepad, then stared at it quizzically. The man’s name sounded familiar. He marked it through once with his pen.

He rolled down the window and took a deep breath of air. The day was warming and the clouds over Bethesda were clearing. Winter would be over soon.

Against his better judgment, against any judgment worthy of the name, he punched in Kaye Lang’s number. She was not at home.

“I hope you’re good at dancing with the big girls,” Dicken murmured to himself, and started the car. “Cross is a very big girl indeed.”

40

Baltimore

The attorney’s name was Charles Wothering. He sounded pure Boston, dressed with rumpled flair, wore a rough-knit wool cap and a long purple muffler. Kaye offered him coffee and he accepted.

“Very nice,” he commented, looking around the apartment. “You have taste.”

“Marge set it up for me,” Kaye said.

Wothering smiled. “Marge has no taste in decoration at all. But money does wonderful things, doesn’t it?”

Kaye smiled. “No complaints,” she said. “Why did she send you here? To…amend our agreements?”

“Not at all,” Wothering said. “Your father and mother are dead, aren’t they?”

“Yes,” Kaye said.

“I’m a middling lawyer, Ms. Lang — may I call you Kaye?”

Kaye nodded.

“Middling at law, but Marge values me as a judge of character. Believe it or not, Marge is not a very good judge of character. Lots of bravado, but a string of bad marriages, which I helped untangle and pack away into the distant past, never to be heard from again. She thinks you need my help.”

“How?” Kaye asked.

Wothering sat on the couch and took three spoons of sugar from the bowl on the serving tray. He stirred them deliberately into his cup. “Did you love Saul Madsen?”

“Yes,” Kaye said.

“And how do you feel now?”

Kaye thought this over, but did not look down from Wothering’s steady gaze. “I realize how much Saul was hiding things from me, just to keep our dream afloat.”

“How much did Saul contribute to your work, intellectually?”

“That depends which work.”

“Your endogenous virus work.”

“Only a little. Not his specialty.”

“What was his specialty?”

“He likened himself to yeast.”

“Beg your pardon?”

“He contributed to the ferment. I brought in the sugar.”

Wothering laughed. “Did he stimulate you, intellectually, I mean?”

“He challenged me.”

“Like a teacher, or a parent, or…a partner?”

“Partner,” Kaye said. “I don’t see where we’re going, Mr. Wothering.”

“You attached yourself to Marge because you did not feel yourself adequate to deal with Augustine and his people alone. Am I right?”

Kaye stared at him.

Wothering lifted a bushy eyebrow.

“Not exactly,” Kaye said. Her eyes stung from not blinking. Wothering blinked luxuriously and set down his cup.

“To be brief, Marge sent me here to separate you from Saul Madsen every way I can. I need your permission to conduct a thorough investigation of EcoBacter, AKS, and your contracts with the Taskforce.”

“Is that necessary? I’m sure there aren’t any more skeletons in my closet, Mr. Wothering.”

“We can never be too cautious, Kaye. You understand that things are getting very serious. Embarrassments of any sort can have a real impact on public policy.”

“I know,” Kaye said. “I’ve said I’m sorry.”

Wothering held out his hand and made a soothing face as he patted the air with his fingers. In a different age, he might have patted her knee in a fatherly fashion. “We’ll clean up the mess.” Wothering’s eyes took on a flinty look. “I don’t want to replace your own growing sense of individual responsibility with the automatic personal housekeeping of a good lawyer,” he said. “You’re a grown woman now, Kaye. But what I will do is untangle the strings, and then…I’ll cut them. You will owe nothing to anybody.”

Kaye bit her lip. “I’d like to make one thing clear, Mr. Wothering. My husband was sick. He was mentally ill. What Saul did or did not do is no reflection on me — nor on him. He was trying to keep his balance and get on with his life and work.”

“I understand, Ms. Lang.”

“Saul was very helpful to me, in his own way, but I resent any implication that I am not my own woman.”

“No such implication intended.”

“Good,” Kaye said, feeling her way through a subtle minefield of irritation, threatening to flare into anger. “What I need to know now is, does Marge Cross still find me useful?”

Wothering smiled and gave a tilt of his head in a way that expertly expressed acknowledgment of her irritation and the need to continue his task. “Marge never gives more than she takes, as I’m sure you will learn soon. Can you explain this vaccine to me, Kaye?”

“It’s a combination antigen coat carrying a tailored ri-bozyme. Ribonucleic acid with enzymelike properties. It attaches to part of the SHEVA code and splits it. Breaks its back. The virus can’t replicate.”

Wothering shook his head in amazement. “Technically wonderful,” he said. “For most of us, incomprehensible. Tell me, how do you think Marge will get women all over the world to consider using it?”

“Advertising and promotion, I suppose. She said she’d practically give it away.”

“Who will the patients trust , Kaye? You are a brilliant woman whose husband deceived her, kept her in the dark. Women can feel this unfairness in their very wombs. Believe me, Marge will go to great lengths to keep you on her team. Your story just gets better and better.”