66

Approaching Washington, D.C.

The Air Force Falcon passenger jet rolled gently to the east. Augustine sipped a Coke and glanced frequently through the window, clearly nervous about flying. Dicken had not known this about Augustine until now; they had never flown together before.

“We can make a strong case that even should second-stage SHEVA fetuses survive birth, they’ll be carriers of a wide variety of infectious HERVs,” Augustine said.

“Whose evidence?” Jane Salter asked. Her face was a little flushed from the heat in the airplane before takeoff; she was at best mildly unimpressed by these military trappings.

“I’ve hadTaskforce researchers putting together biopsy results for the last two weeks, just on a hunch. We know HERVs express under all sorts of conditions, but the particles have never been infectious until now.”

“We still don’t know what the hell purpose the noninfec-tious particles serve, if any,” Salter said. The other staffers, younger and less experienced, sat quietly in their seats, content to listen.

“No good purpose,” Augustine said, tapping the seat arm. He swallowed hard and looked out the window again. “The HERV continue to produce viral particles that aren’t infectious…Until SHEVA codes for a complete tool kit, everything necessary for a virus to assemble and escape a cell. I have six expert opinions, including Jackson’s, that SHEVA may ‘teach’ other HERV how to be infectious again. They’ll be most active in individuals with rapidly dividing cells, and that means SHEVA fetuses. We could have to deal with diseases we haven’t seen in millions of years.”

“Diseases that may no longer be pathogenic in humans,” Dicken said.

“Can we take that chance?” Augustine asked. Dicken shrugged.

“So what are you going to recommend?” Salter asked.

“Washington is already under curfew, and they’ll have it under martial law the instant someone decides to break a plate glass window or roll a car. No demonstrations, no inflammatory comments…Politicians hate to be lynched. It won’t be long. The common folk are like cows in a herd, and there’s been more than enough lightning to make even the cowboys nervous.”

“Infelicitous comparison, Dr. Augustine,” Salter said dryly.

“Well, I’ll refine it,” Augustine said. “I’m not at my best when I’m at twenty thousand feet.”

“You think we’re going to be under martial law,” Dicken said, “and we can sequester all pregnant women and take their babies away from them…for testing?”

“It’s horrible,” Augustine admitted. “Most if not all of the fetuses will probably die. But if they do survive, I think we can make a case that we’ll have to sequester them.”

“Talk about throwing gas on a fire,” Dicken said.

Augustine thoughtfully agreed. “I’ve been racking my brains trying to find a different solution. I will entertain alternatives.”

“Maybe we shouldn’t muddy the waters right now,” Salter said.

“I have no intention of saying or doing anything now. The work goes on.”

“We’d better be on firm ground,” Dicken said.

“Damned right,” Augustine said with a grimace. “Terra firma, and the sooner the better.”

66

Leaving Baltimore

Everyone has a bitch,” Mitch observed as he steered them along state route 26 out of the city, staying away from the main highways. Too many demonstrations — by truckers, motorists, even bicyclists, all claiming a shot at civil disobedience — had shut down the main routes. As it was, they had to wait twenty minutes in the middle of downtown as police cleared tons of garbage dumped by protesting sanitation workers.

“We failed them,” Kaye said.

“You didn’t fail them,” Mitch said as he tried to find an alley to turn into.

“I screwed up and didn’t make my case.” Kaye hummed nervously to herself.

“Something wrong?” Mitch asked.

“Nothing,” she said briskly. “Just the whole damned planet.”

In West Virginia, they pulled into a KOA campground and paid thirty dollars for a tent site. Mitch set up the lightweight dome tent he had bought in Austria before he met Tilde, and a small camp stove, under a young oak tree looking out over a low valley where two tractors sat idle in a carefully furrowed field.

The sun had gone down twenty minutes before and the sky was mottled with light clouds. The air was just beginning to cool. Kaye’s hair was sticky, the elastic of her panties chafed.

One other family had set up two tents about a hundred yards away, otherwise the campground was empty.

Kaye climbed through the rainflap into the tent. “Come in here,” she told Mitch. She pulled off her dress and lay back on the sleeping bag Mitch had unrolled. Mitch set the campstove down and poked his head into the tent.

“My God, woman,” he said admiringly.

“Do you smell me?” she asked.

“I surely do, ma’am,” he said in agent Benson’s fine North Carolina accent. He slipped in beside her. “It’s still a little warm.”

“I smell you,” Kaye said. She had a needful and serious look on her face. She helped him out of his shirt, and he kicked aside his pants before reaching for the shaving kit where he was keeping the condoms. As he started to rip open the foil package, she bent over and kissed his erect penis. “Not this time,” she said. She licked him swiftly, looked up. “I want you now, nothing in between.”

Mitch took hold of her head and lifted her mouth away from him. “No,” he said.

“Why not?” she asked.

“You’re fertile,” he said.

“How the hell do you know?” Kaye asked.

“I can see it in your skin. I can smell it.”

“I bet you can,” she said admiringly. “Can you smell anything else?” She pushed closer to him, lifted over his head, swung her knee to the other side.

“Spring,” Mitch said, returning the favor.

She arched her back, half-twisted, and deftly fondled him, as he nuzzled between her legs.

“Ballet dancer,” Mitch said, his voice muffled.

“You’re fertile, too,” she said. “You didn’t say otherwise.”

“Mm.”

She lifted her torso again, rolled off him, and swung around to face him. “You’re shedding,” she said.

Mitch screwed up his face in puzzlement. “What?”

“You’re shedding SHEVA. I test positive.”

“Good Christ, Kaye. You sure know how to trash a mood.” Mitch pushed back and sat with his legs pulled up in the corner of the tent. “I didn’t think it could happen so fast.”

“Something thinks I’m your woman,” Kaye said. “Nature says we’re going to be together a long time. I want that to be true.”

Mitch was at a complete loss. “I do, too, but we don’t need to act like idiots.”

“Every man wants to make love to a fertile woman. It’s in their genes.”

“That is complete bullshit,” Mitch said, and pushed back from her. “What in hell are you doing?”

Kaye hunkered across from him and rested on her knees. She made his head throb. The entire tent smelled of both of them and he could not think straight. “We can prove them wrong, Mitch.”

“About what?”

“I once worried that work and family wouldn’t fit together. Now, there’s no conflict. I am my own laboratory.”

Mitch shook his head vehemently. “No.”

Kaye lay down beside him, pillowing her head on her arms. “Pretty forward and up front, no?” she asked softly.

“We haven’t the slightest idea what’s going to happen,” Mitch said. His eyes were brimming, warm, half from fear, half from another emotion he could not define — something close to pure physical joy. His body wanted her so intensely, wanted her now. If he gave in, he knew it would be the supreme sexual act of his entire life. And if he gave in now, he worried he would never forgive himself.

“I know you believe we’re right, and I know you’d be a good father,” Kaye said, eyes narrowed to slits. She slowly lifted one leg. “If we don’t do something now, maybe it will never happen, and we’ll never know. Be my man. Please.”