I sat up sweating, and waited for my muscles to stop twitching. It was as if there were an electrical disturbance in my entire system, and I might have a heart attack or a stroke. Taking deep, slow breaths, I blanked out my mind. I did not move. When the vision had passed, I rang for the nurse.

When she saw the look on my face, she did not argue about the phone. She brought it right away and I called Marino after she left.

'You still in jail?' he said over the line.

'I think he killed his guinea pig,' I said.

'Whoa. How 'bout starting over again.'

'Deadoc. The woman he shot and dismembered may have been his guinea pig. Someone he knew and had easy access to.'

'I gotta confess, Doc, I got no idea what the hell you're talking about.' I could tell by his tone he was worried about my state of mind.

'It makes sense that he couldn't look at her. The M.O. makes a lot of sense.'

'Now you really got me confused.'

'If you wanted to find a way to murder people through a virus,' I explained, 'first you would have to figure out a way. The route of transmission, for example. Is it a food, a drink, dust? With smallpox, transmission is airborne, spread by droplets or by fluid from the lesions. The disease can be carried on a person or his clothes.'

'Start with this,' he said. 'Where did this person get the virus to begin with? Not exactly something you order through the mail.'

'I don't know. To my knowledge there are only two places in the world that keep archival smallpox. CDC and a laboratory in Moscow.'

'So maybe this is all a Russian plot,' he said, sardonically.

'Let me give you a scenario,' I said. 'The killer has a grudge, maybe even some delusion that he has a religious calling to bring back one of the worst diseases this planet has ever known. He's got to figure out a way to randomly infect people and be sure that it can work.'

'So he needs a guinea pig,' Marino said.

'Yes. And let's suppose he has a neighbor, a relative, someone elderly and not well. Maybe he even takes care of her. What better way to test the virus than on that person? And if it works, you kill her and stage her death to look like something else. After all, he certainly can't have her die of smallpox. Not if there is a connection between him and her. We might figure out who he is. So he shoots her in the head, dismembers her so we'll think it's the serial killings again.'

'Then how do you get from that to the lady on Tangier?'

'She was exposed,' I simply said.

'How? Was something delivered to her? Did she get something in the mail? Was it carried on the air? Was she pricked in her sleep?'

'I don't know how.'

'You think deadoc lives on Tangier?' Marino then asked.

'No, I don't,' I said. 'I think he picked it because the island is the perfect place to start an epidemic. Small, self-contained. Also easy to quarantine, meaning the killer doesn't intend to annihilate all of society with one blow. He's trying a little bit at a time, cutting us up in small pieces.'

'Yeah. Like he did the old lady, if you're right.'

'He wants something,' I said. 'Tangier is an attention-getter.'

'No offense, Doc, but I hope you're wrong about all of this.'

'I'm heading to Atlanta in the morning. How about checking with Vander, see if he's had any luck with the thumbprint.'

'So far he hasn't. It's looking like the victim doesn't have any prints on file. Anything comes up, I'll call your pager.'

'Damn,' I muttered, for the nurse had taken that, too.

The rest of the day moved interminably slowly, and it wasn't until after supper that

Fujitsubo came to say goodbye. Although the act of releasing me implied I was

neither infected nor infectious, he was in a blue suit, which he plugged into an air line.

'I should keep you longer,' he said right off, filling my heart with dread. 'Incubation, on average, is twelve to thirteen days. But it can be as long as twenty-one. What I'm saying to you is that you could still get sick.'

'I understand that,' I said, reaching for my water.

'The revaccination may or may not help depending on what stage you were in when I

gave it to you.'

I nodded. 'And I wouldn't be in such a hurry to leave if you would just take this on instead of sending me to CDC.'

'Kay, I can't.' His voice was muffled through plastic. 'You know it has nothing to do with what I feel like doing. But I can no more pull something out from under CDC than you can grab a case that isn't your jurisdiction. I've talked to them. They are most concerned over a possible outbreak and will begin testing the moment you arrive with the samples.'

'I fear terrorism may be involved.' I refused to back down.

'Until there is evidence of it - and I hope there won't be - we can do nothing more for you here.' His regret was sincere. 'Go to Atlanta and see what they have to say.

They're operating with a skeleton crew, too. The timing couldn't be worse.'

'Or perhaps more deliberate,' I said. 'If you were a bad person planning to commit serial crimes with a virus, what better time than when the significant federal health agencies are in extremis? And this furlough's been going on for a while and not predicted to end anytime soon.'

He was silent.

'John,' I went on, 'you helped with the autopsy. Have you ever seen a disease like this?'

'Only in textbooks,' he grimly replied.

'How does smallpox suddenly just reappear on its own?'

'If that's what it is.'

'Whatever it is, it's virulent and it kills,' I tried to reason with him.

But he could do nothing more, and the rest of the night I wandered from room to room in AOL. Every hour, I checked my e-mail. Deadoc remained silent until six o'clock

the next morning when he walked into the M.E. room. My heart jumped as his name appeared on screen. My adrenaline began to pump the way it always did when he talked to me. He was on the line, it was up to me. I could catch him, if only I could trip him.

DEADOC: Sunday I went to church bet you didn't SCARPETTA: What was the homily about? DEADOC: sermon

SCARPETTA: You are not Catholic. DEADOC: beware of men

SCARPETTA: Matthew 10. Tell me what you mean. DEADOC: to say he s sorry

SCARPETTA: Who is he? And what did he do? DEADOC: ye shall indeed drink of the cup that I drink of

Before I could answer, he was gone, and I began flipping through the Bible. The verse he quoted this time was from Mark, and again, it was Jesus speaking, which hinted to me, if nothing else, that deadoc wasn't Jewish. Nor was he Catholic, based on his comments about church. I was no theologian, but drinking of the cup seemed to refer to Christ's eventual crucifixion. So deadoc had been crucified and I would be, too?

It was my last few hours here and my nurse, Sally, was more liberal with the phone. I

paged Lucy, who called me back almost instantly.

'I'm talking to him,' I said. 'Are you guys there?'

'We're there. He's got to stay on longer,' my niece said. 'There are so many trunk lines, and we got to line up all the phone companies to trap and trace. Your last call was coming in from Dallas.'

'You're kidding,' I said in dismay.

'That's not the origin, just a switch it was routed through. We didn't get any farther because he disconnected. Keep trying. Sounds like this guy's some kind of religious nut.'