“Jill…?”

“I’ll get my jacket and the briefcase. You get your keys.”

Epilogue

“I don’t understand what you want from me,” protested Dr. Ernest Namore. He made an effort to sound stern, but he was more than a little flustered.

“I’m trying to be very clear about that.” Calder Farris used a low, threatening tone, a tone that promised a world of hurt should it not be obeyed. “Your government wants your research. We’re not asking for charity, Dr. Namore. Depending on how valuable we deem your work, there might well be a place for you at the DoD. But first, we need to know specifically what you’ve got.”

Dr. Namore looked down at some papers on his desktop, pushed them around a bit, face worried. He cleared his throat. “I’ve told you again and again—I’ve dabbled with some wave mechanics. Routine stuff. I don’t know why you keep bothering me.”

Farris made a noncommittal sound.

“It’s really nowhere near coherent form yet, and I doubt it’ll be of any interest to you once it is. I can’t be any more straightforward with you than that.”

Namore met his eyes boldly. His were lying eyes.

Farris smiled. “Well, then… I must have been mistaken.”

Outside in his car, Farris used his cell phone to dial the University of Tennessee. Jill was in her office.

“I have one,” he said.

“Oh?” He could hear her scrambling for pen and paper.

He gave her the rundown, how he’d overheard Namore talking to a colleague at a conference. The colleague hadn’t found Namore’s ideas of interest, but Farris had.

“How close do you think he is?”

“His equation is off, but it’s in the ballpark.”

“Damn. What’s he like?”

“Well, he wouldn’t give me the time of day,” Farris laughed. “Especially when I put on the screws.”

“Good for him.”

“Let me give you his address.” Farris rambled off the numbers.

“Calder?” Jill said when she had taken it down. “Thank you. And… be careful, okay?”

“Absolutely. Say hello to that husband of yours for me.”

“Ditto.” Jill laughed. “Your wife, that is. Take care.”

Calder hung up the phone and felt the knot of fear in his stomach dissipate a little. It seemed some days he was more conscious of the danger than others. Some nights he had nightmares about the apocalypse Jill had enabled him to visualize so well. Some nights he lay awake running over in his mind what more he could do, how to structure his work in the DoD to make sure he would always be there when it cropped up, to make sure that it could never get away from him. And some nights he held Cherry as tightly as he could and willed himself to forget.

He remembered Mark Avery saying something about looking at your child and questioning the rightfulness of what they did. Now when Calder held Jason in his arms the fear of what might be tightened its hand around his heart so hard it hurt. Jason was so young. And life was so long and so chaotic. Anything could happen, in time.

He sensed that, of all of them, he was the one who was the most haunted by it. He supposed that penance was his due.

Dr. Namore lived alone, a confirmed bachelor, completely absorbed in his work at UC Davis. When the knock came on the door of his condo, one quiet Tuesday night, he could not imagine who it might be. He opened it to find a blond woman and a dark-haired young man on the stoop.

The woman smiled nervously and held out her hand.

“Good evening, Dr. Namore. I’m Dr. Talcott and this is my husband, Dr. Andros. May we come in?”