His expression said what I was used to hearing. Life was much more complicated than

I presented it, and only people like him recognized the subtler shades.

'I'm not saying we should destroy anything,' I replied. 'Not at all. Actually, probably we shouldn't. Because of this.' I looked at the box I had just given him. 'Our autoclaving smallpox certainly won't mean it's gone. I guess it's like any other weapon.'

'You and me both. I'd sure like to know where the Russians are hiding their variola stock virus these days, and if they've sold any of it to the Middle East, North Korea.'

'You'll do PCR on this?' I said.

'Yes.'

'Right away?'

'As fast as we can.'

'Please,' I said. 'This is an emergency.'

'That's why I'm standing here now,' he said. 'The government considers me nonessential. I should be at home.'

'I've got photographs that USAMRIID was kind enough to develop while I was in the

Slammer,' I said with a trace of irony.

'I want to see them.'

We took the elevator back up, getting off on the fourth floor. He led me into a conference room where staff met to devise strategies against terrible scourges they couldn't always identify. Usually bacteriologists, epidemiologists, people in charge of quarantines, communications, special pathogens and PCR assembled in the room. But it was quiet, no one was here but us.

'Right now,' Martin said, 'I'm all you've got.'

I got a thick envelope out of my purse, and he began to go through the photographs. For a moment, he stared as if transfixed, at color prints of the torso and those of Lila Pruitt.

'Good God,' he said. 'I think we should look at transpiration routes right away. Everybody who might have had contact. And I mean, fast.'

'We can do that on Tangier,' I said. 'Maybe.'

'Definitely not chicken pox or measles. No way, Jose,' he said. 'Definitely pox- related.'

He went through photographs of the severed hands and feet, his eyes wide.

'Wow.' He stared without blinking, light reflecting on his glasses. 'What the hell is this?'

'He calls himself deadoc,' I said. 'He sent me graphic files through AOL. Anonymously, of course. The FBI's trying to track him.'

'And this victim here, he dismembered?' I nodded.

'She also has manifestations similar to the victim on Tangier.' He was looking at vesicles on the torso.

'So far, yes.'

'You know, monkeypox has been worrying me for years,' he said. 'We survey the hell out of West Africa, from Zaire to Sierra Leone, where cases have occurred, along with whitepox. But so far, no variola virus has turned up. My fear, though, is that one of these days, some poxvirus in the animal kingdom is going to figure out a way to infect people.'

Again, I thought about my telephone conversation with Rose, about murder and animal hairs.

'All that's got to happen is the microorganism gets in the air, let's say, and finds a susceptible host.'

He went back to Lila Pruitt, to her disfigured, tormented body on her foul bed.

'Now she was obviously exposed to enough virus to cause devastating disease,' he said, and he was so engrossed, he seemed to be talking to himself.

'Dr Martin,' I said. 'Do monkeys get monkeypox or are they just the carrier?'

'They get it and they give it where there is animal contact, such as in the rain forests

of Africa. There are nine known virulent poxviruses on this planet and transmission to humans happens only in two. The variola virus, or smallpox, which, thank God, we don't see anymore, and molluscum contagiosum.'

'Trace evidence clinging to the torso has been identified as monkey hair.' He turned to look at me and frowned. 'What?'

'And rabbit hair, too. I'm just wondering if someone out there is conducting their own laboratory experiments.'

He got up from the table.

'We'll start on this now. Where can you be reached?'

'Back in Richmond.' I handed him my card as we walked out of the conference room.

'Could someone maybe call for a taxi?'

'Sure. One of the guards at the desk. Afraid none of the clerical staff is in.'

Carrying the box, he pushed the elevator button with his elbow. 'It's a nightmare. We got salmonella in Orlando from unpasteurized orange juice, another potential cruise ship outbreak of E. coli O-one-five-seven-H-seven, probably undercooked ground beef again. Botulism in Rhode Island, and some respiratory disease in an old folks' home. And Congress doesn't want to fund us.'

'Tell me about it,' I said.

We stopped at each floor, waiting as other people got on. Martin kept talking.

'Imagine this,' he went on. 'A resort in Iowa where we've got suspected shigella because a lot of rain overflowed in private wells. And try to get the EPA involved.'

'It's called mission impossible,' someone sardonically said as the doors opened again.

'If they even exist anymore,' Martin quipped. 'We get fourteen thousand calls a year and have only two operators. Actually, right now we got none. Anybody who comes in, answers the phone. Including me.'

'Please don't let this wait,' I said as we reached the lobby.

'Don't worry.' He was into it. 'I got three guys I'm calling in from home right away.'

For half an hour, I waited in the lobby and used a phone, and at last my taxi was here. I rode in silence, staring out at plazas of polished granite and marble, and sports complexes that reminded me of the Olympics, and buildings of silver and glass. Atlanta was a city where everything aspired higher, and lavish fountains seemed a symbol of generosity and no fear. I was feeling light-headed and chilled and unusually tired for one who had just spent the better part of a week in bed. By the time I reached my Delta gate, my back had begun to ache. I could not get warm or think very clearly, and I knew I had a fever.

I was ill by the time I reached Richmond. When Marino met me at the gate, the expression on his face turned to abject fear.

'Geez, Doc,' he said. 'You look like hell.'

'I feel like hell.'

'You got any bags?'

'No. You got any news?'

'Yeah,' he said. 'One tidbit that will piss you off. Ring arrested Keith Pleasants last night.'

'For what?' I exclaimed as I coughed.

'Attempting to elude. Supposedly, Ring was following him out of the landfill after work and tried to pull him for speeding. Supposedly, Pleasants wouldn't stop. So he's in jail, bond set at five grand, if you can believe that. He ain't going nowhere anytime soon.'

'Harassment.' I blew my nose. 'Ring is picking on him. Picking on Lucy. Picking on me.'

'No kidding. Maybe you should've stayed in Maryland, in bed,' he said as we boarded the escalator. 'No offense, but I ain't gonna catch this, am I?'

Marino was terrified of anything he could not see, whether it was radiation or a virus.

'I don't know what I've got,' I said. 'Maybe the flu.'

'Last time I got that I was out for two weeks.' His pace slowed, so he did not keep up with me. 'Plus, you been around other things.'

'Then don't come close, touch or kiss me,' I said, shortly.

'Hey, don't worry.'

This continued as we walked out into the cold afternoon.

'Look. I'm going to take a taxi home,' I said and I was so mad at him I was next to tears.

'I don't want you doing that.' Marino looked frightened and was jumpy.

I waved in the air, swallowing hard and hiding my face as a Blue Bird cab veered toward me.

'You don't need the flu. Rose doesn't need it. No one needs it,' I said, furiously. 'You know, I'm almost out of cash. This is awful. Look at my suit. You think an autoclave presses anything and leaves a pleasant smell? The hell with my hose. I got no coat, no gloves. Here I am, and it's what?' I yanked open the back door of a cab that was Carolina blue. 'Thirty degrees?'