A Terrible Mercy

Chapter Thirteen: Parliament of Error Page 167

Chapter Fourteen: Rage of Angels Page 178

Chapter Fifteen: A Murder of Crows Page 191

Chapter Sixteen: Carrion's Cry Page 205

Chapter Seventeen: Council of Whispers Page 218

Chapter Eighteen: Footprints of the Magi Page 230

Chapter Nineteen: Tup'ny Saviors Page 241

Chapter Twenty: Flight From Reason Page 256

Chapter Twenty-One: Circle of Thrones Page 266

Chapter Twenty-Two: Suspicions Page 281

Chapter Twenty-Three: Atlas in Flames Page 292

Chapter Twenty-Four: Satan and St. Peter Page 309

Chapter Twenty-Five: Deus Ex Machina Page 326

Chapter Twenty-Six: Ballet in the Crosshairs Page 342

Chapter Twenty-Seven: Eternity's End Page 356

Chapter Twenty-Eight: Charybis Page 370

Chapter Twenty-Nine: To Each His Tomb Page 384

Chapter One

Sentries

He didn’t distinguish the voices at first. They were part of the overall mosaic of sound one gets accustomed to in London, a noisy city in a deafening century. But that was outside. Within Westminster Abbey it was yesterday. A thousand years of yesterdays.

Dumas bent closer to his work.

The watery gray light of a stormy English winter had exhausted itself on the day and was leaving through the web of windows in the south transept. A semicircle of anemic electric lights in wall sconces were left to stand watch over his shoulders like half-blind old men, too high to be of any practical use, casting just enough light so his own shadow kept getting in the way. He rubbed a little harder to transfer the images from the stone to the rice paper. The next train to Birmingham left Euston station at 5:17, and he had to be on it; rather, he hoped to be on it. He wasn’t of sufficient importance to anyone apart from his housekeeper that he actually had to be anywhere.

Thatcher would have seen it coming, said a man’s voice, separating itself from the background. The old lady was a pragmatist.

So, you don’t think peace is such a good idea? said a second man. He seemed amused.

That kind of peace is a pipe dream, and those who think it has any prospects in fact are inhaling from a collective bong of gargantuan proportions. You know that better than most. The man nodded toward a depiction of Paradise in a dingy stained-glass rosette. Adam was the only man who ever knew real peace. Then Eve entered the picture . . . He made a dismissive gesture with his fingers. Now the word is just a noise – a rune we bow to – undecipherable as the swirls on a Celtic cross; but we like the sound of it. So we throw blood and bones at it as if sufficient sacrifice will bring it to life.

A wordless interlude followed, during which the wandering motes of millennia sifted into the sightless eyes of stone and plaster saints.

The old girl was right when she said we hadn’t heard the last of the Irish Troubles with the St. Andrew’s Agreement. People ignored her, just because the gears were beginning to slip.

They ignored her because they didn’t like what she had to say, said the second voice, also a man. Just like they ignored Churchill, and Reagan, and Bushes One and Two. People are pretty quick to slap on the blinders and cover their ears when reality dents their dogma. Anyway, who even remembers Thatcher anymore? Or Patrick Magee, the Brighton bombings; any of it? Ancient history. Say IRA these days and people think you’re talking sidewalk finance. Mention the Iron Lady, and they think bondage.

The voices were not those of young men, nor were their words those of young men. Truth be told, their perspective was one with which Dumas—however hard he might be trying not to eavesdrop—could identify. These were men of his generation; a fact which did not dispose him any more kindly toward them for their intrusion. What were they doing here? Though neither a drinker or socializer himself, he imagined that somewhere, among all the pubs presently undergoing renovation and updating in London, there must exist some dimly-lit, poorly-frequent throwback to the ‘60s where smoking and intelligent conversation were still allowed and men of their vintage could bluster, and fuss, and complain to their heart’s content. If not, then a private club, of which a few remained. Why here in Westminster? Why now?

In any event, the speaker continued, she wouldn’t have pulled the rug out from under the Loyalists to trade for peace, the way Number 10’s done this time ‘round.

"Not peace. Peace of mind; the kind one buys with blinders on, and pays for in the same currency Chamberlain exchanged for Hitler’s precious slip of paper.

To be fair, al Qaeda’s defibrillation by the ISIL phenomena - particularly the defection to the Caliphate by the seven high-ranking Pakistani Taliban, together with the Charlie Hebdo massacre and the bombing of the Baker Street Mosque – lit a fire under our home-grown towel-heads and malcontents. My guess is the PM figured a second edition of Sinn Féin upstarts – especially with the loss of the Scottish independence referendum smoldering in recent memory – was one more crisis than the Home Office was willing to deal with at present. Even Gerry Adams couldn’t have kept them in line. He chuckled drily. "He’d be livid, wouldn’t he? A bunch of kids who weren’t even born when Belfast was a battleground, doing what he and the rest of the living dead hadn’t managed in forty years!

Anyway, now that the ink is dry on the Oxford Accords the country’s running amok with unemployed extremists—pardoned, pointless, and heavily armed. Does anyone really think they’re going to go quietly to hourly work at Wimpy’s?

There was a smile in the other man’s voice. Burger King.

"I date myself, but you take my meaning. Not an attractive career option for some testosterone-fueled radical who’s just grasped one of life’s little verities: you can get anything you want at the point of a gun; an awareness that can only be affirmed by the FO's knock-kneed concessions to their most recent demands for reparations. Reparations? Really?

We haven't bought peace by folding our flag; we've only succeeded in putting others on notice that we can be terrorized into submission. Though that door lies chaos that will make the riots of ‘11 and ‘12 look like foreplay.

Dumas was irritated by the interruption, and by his inability to tune out a private conversation. No one was supposed to be in the cathedral between the Samuel Johnson Memorial Service, on the 18th, and Christmas morning while three of the vaults in the nave were under renovation; it was dangerous. They'd canceled the memorial service – and even Dumas had difficulty obtaining permission to spend a few hours in the Poet’s Corner – and he sat on the Board of Regents.

The intruders must have come in through the cloisters.

The old men in the wall sconces seemed emboldened at having chased away the day, and shone a little more brightly now that it had all but gone, leaning over his shoulder and casting critical glances upon his work as, high overhead, sleet etched a blustery message on the windows.

He needed to squeeze Thomas Gray in before he had to go. At this rate, he’d have rubbed all the graves in another month or so—his contribution to the family fortune. A pauper’s bequest, especially apt since he’d sold most of the real art to subsidize the title and the family pile at Hanbury.

Lord Dumas, kneeling, rubbing, gently bringing the dead to life on paper. Truth be told, he’d gotten good at it. He made a point of reading some of the works of each in turn and would whisper to them in their own words as he worked:

‘Their lot forbad: nor circumscrib’d alone

Their growing virtues, but their crimes confine’d

Normally, the sound of his voice had the effect of quieting the troubling doubts raised by his more pragmatic inner self in consideration of his labors: would people pay to see The Dead of Westminster, Distinctive Rubbings by Lord Dumas, Eighteenth Earl of Shadowmarch?

Last Earl of Shadowmarch, and good riddance.

Who cared? Even he didn’t. It was only some atavistic sense of familial loyalty that kept him at it. He scratched a hasty signature in the lower right-hand corner.

Footfalls measured the silence until the first man replied. They came to a stop where the Poet’s Corner intercepts the south ambulatory, about twenty feet away.

When you give in to bullies, you don’t just empower them, you encourage whatever methods they employed to achieve their objectives . . . usually terror and violence. Meaning it’s the innocent who pay; school kids in Pakistan; twenty-one Copts on a beach in Libya; two hundred Christian girls in Nigeria . . . He paused for a moment. The crucifixions in Raqqa and Kobani. The kind of peace those acts purchase, I’m willing to die to prevent.

Or kill?

Dumas stopped rubbing in mid stroke.

A long row of wooden folding chairs formed a porous wall between Dumas and the men. He pulled himself across the cold stone floor on his knees—which ached despite the neoprene knee-pads—and, pressing his face against the chairs, peered through them.

The first man was indistinguishable from half a million others on which England held the exclusive patent. Everything about him was medium: his height, his weight, his clothes, his shoes, his voice. Medium. A tiny island of silver hair in the middle of his forehead oversaw the retreat of the hairline in general. An indistinctive man who couldn’t have been more anonymous if he’d trained for it. Nevertheless, there was something familiar about him.

Then why all the bother about McGilvery and IRA redivivus, if they’re just one among many?

The speaker’s voice was low and full-throated, with a distinctly Gaelic flavor. His words were clear despite the fact that he spoke just above a whisper. Like Dumas, he was fairly tall and had probably been lean at an earlier stage in life. Unlike Dumas, he was muscular and ruddy, not much at home in his new suit. There was a lot of silver in his close-cropped hair, especially about the temples and in his carefully groomed mustache and beard.

As Dumas had inferred from their voices, the two were roughly the same age though the small man seemed older. Preoccupied and nervous, he kept looking in the direction from which they’d come and off into the shadows of the north transept and the Henry VII Chapel. Once, Dumas felt sure he was staring right at him. Arafat was one among many, the small man said. If Rabin had had the forethought to slip a knife into his belly at that little Nobel fête, we’d all have been a damned sight better off. Better yet, if some benevolent time-traveler would slip back to the start of it all and throttle Haj Amin al Husseini in his bassinet . . .

The tall man choked off a monosyllabic laugh. Some would say Lord Balfour was the midwife for that particular monstrosity. Water pretty long under the bridge in either case, wouldn't you say? Anyway, I don’t think there’s much chance of the others rallying ‘round a loose cannon like Sean McGilvery. I just think you’ve become obsessed with him because of what happened to your daughter. Immediately he repented. I oughtn’t to have said that. Sorry.

The eyes of the other man wandered the darkened precincts of the cathedral, as if in search of something he knew wasn’t there. "Used to be there was a reason for blowing up babies and bludgeoning grandmothers in their wheelchairs, however logically or morally profane. At least they all danced ‘round the same maypole. Did lip-service to the same totem. Now, it’s totally senseless. Vicious.

"Violence in support of an ideology is a fearful thing—God knows we’ve had our share of it lately—the video of Mohamed Merah laughing and praising Allah as he pumped a bullet in the brain of that little girl in Toulouse makes an indelible poster for radical Islam, Forsane-Alizza in particular—but at least you know where it’s coming from and what its ends are, more or less.

Violence without ideology, as an end in itself, is just an omnivorous mass, mutating as it evolves as mindless and meaningless as wildfire. Look at the lunatics swarming Europe; hoodlums and anarchists calling themselves revolutionaries, as if that somehow ennobles their crimes. Haven’t even the sense to see they're holding knives to their own throats.

He sighed deeply. "Nothing new under the sun. What’s that from? Ecclesiastes, isn’t it?"

The other man made a noise of agreement.

There was a brief silence during which Dumas battled the urge to declare his presence. No ignominy could surpass that of being discovered behind the chairs with his little stubs of colored chalk, eavesdropping on a private conversation between two gentlemen – and in Westminster Abbey of all places.

But it was already too late. If discovered, he’d have to pretend to have fallen asleep.

The bald man grunted a note of irony. Don’t get me started, he said. But this isn’t about McGilvery. He’s already stuck his neck in the noose. All I have to do is give the rope a good stout yank, which pleasure shall be mine within a fortnight if all else goes according to script.

I thought as much. It’s the ‘all else’ we’re here about, isn’t it, Avery?

Avery! Avery Fuller. The Ghost of MI6. Dumas had seen him in Parliament often when the Conservatives were in. A shadowy figure with some connections to the Cobra Committee's Joint Terrorism Analysis Centre who, true to his sobriquet, haunted the foggy periphery of government.

Let’s have it then.

Fuller searched every nook and cranny of the abbey with practiced eyes, twice sweeping across the row of chairs as Dumas held his breath. It’s very sensitive, Rhodes.

I gathered as much, said Rhodes. The quirky smile dissolved from his lips and he stared hard at his companion. We could have discussed McGilvery at the office.

Fuller took his companion by the arm and drew him off the aisle, closer to Dumas whose heart, he felt sure, would betray him at any minute. You remember Farhan al-Sa’di?

Of course. We dug him out of a hole in Basra shortly before we pulled out of Iraq.

"The same. Started his illustrious career as a courier, sneaking porn and Nestle's Quik! to bin Laden in Abbotabad. His credibility among the rank-and-file soared when he escaped bin Laden’s compound the night the Yanks landed."

So I recall. Safely under lock and key at Belmarsh prison since, hasn’t he?

Her Majesty’s permanent guest under the provisions of the Anti-Terrorism, Crime and Security Act, yes.

Don’t tell me he’s been released after all this time.

In a manner of speaking, said Fuller. He’s dead.

Rhodes was not disconsolate. Nothing quick and painless, I trust.

Food poisoning, of all things. Apparently the cuisine at Belmarsh is at odds with the Arab constitution.

The bacon must not have been halal. Rhodes' mirthless, monosyllabic laugh banged around the extremities of the minster in search of humor. The chef deserves the Victoria Cross. So, why the secrecy?

Take a seat, said Fuller, pulling a chair from the stack nearest Dumas. He kicked it open and sat down. Rhodes did the same, depleting Dumas’ cover by a quarter. I assume you’re familiar with the Ebola and Marburg viruses . . .

Rhodes sat bolt upright, nearly toppling the chair. His eyes widened in what couldn’t be taken for anything but blind fear. Hell!

Shh! said Fuller, darting cautious glances at the points of the cross. Sit down, man! He patted the vacant seat. Sit down. What’s gotten into you?

"I’ll tell you what’s not getting into me, said Rhodes shakily as he resumed his seat. Bloody Ebola. I’ve seen it in action, and I’d rather be drawn and quartered. Rhodes was breathing deeply and swallowing frequently. Inhuman. He stared blankly at Fuller. Sweat was forming on his forehead. Just the word makes me nauseous."

The folded legs of a chair intersected directly in front of Dumas, forming two triangles. Through the upper triangle, he could see Rhodes’ face. No longer ruddy, it had turned pale and pasty, as if someone had stuck a spigot in the base of his skull and drained the blood out. In the lower triangle, his hands wrestled one another fiercely.

They were not the hands of a timid man.

That outbreak in West Africa . . . brought it all back, too vividly. His eyes searched the shadows for refuge from the images awakening in his memory.

"I was on my way to Kenya after sorting out a little trouble in Kinshasa—back in my dark ages—not long after New Year’s. Somewhere along the way I hopped this old Fokker Friendship for Nairobi, and we bounced around the better part of the day, picking up passengers and freight from Kisangani to Entebbe.

In Kisumu this mgoso got on board.

Mgoso?

"White bloke. I didn’t take much notice, at first. Then, just as we were swinging out over Lake Victoria, he reached for the goody bag and crammed it over his mouth.

I almost laughed, you know how you do when it’s someone else who's airsick and not you? But it went on and on. The bag was full—then started oozing over with this—this vile, blackened blood.

I say!

The bag broke and we were all showered with it. It was like a nightmare, one of those things you just know can’t really be happening. Then he raised his head. Rhodes turned away and winced, as if to avoid staring the memory in the face. Blood was gushing out of his mouth, his nose—his eyes and ears. And his skin was falling away in clumps; rotting off his face.

Good heavens, Rhodes!

‘Crash and bleed’ they call it. He was being eaten alive—from the inside out—by Ebola.

You don’t mean to say . . . you didn’t catch it, did you? Well, clearly not. Did anyone else?

Rhodes shrugged. "Who knows? If not, it’s a miracle. The plane landed in Nairobi, and the poor wretch dragged himself off in a taxi. That’s the last I saw of him, but I heard what happened from a doctor friend. Not a nice story.

When they finally dissected him, it was impossible to tell one organ from another. Everything had sort of joined together in a putrid mass of blackened ooze. Blood pudding, the doctor called it. Cases like that made Ebola front-page news back in the day. A lot of books were written on the subject, some scientific, some sensational. But no collection of words could ever describe what I saw. The hands stopped their incessant worrying as he fell silent, then resumed as he spoke.

It’s always something, said Fuller. The vanishing rain forests, the ozone hole, snail darters, global warming. . .

Climate change, Avery. Climate change. Get with the program.

Every potential disaster has its messiah—its Al Gore—stuffing al Jazeera cash in his trousers with one hand while clearing space on the mantle for the Nobel Prize with the other. Every cause generates its own mini-economy, and the job of those who feed on that economy—its apostles and evangelists—is to fuel the fear. Heaven forbid they should find a solution; they’d all be out of work.

Life would be much easier, said Rhodes, "if all the devils had horns. Nice little speech, though. I don’t guess you’ll be delivering it at that environmental feel good they’re having across town.

Ebola doesn’t belong on your list, though, Avery. It’s earned whatever fear it inspires. Rhodes removed a handkerchief from the inner pocket of his overcoat and dabbed at his forehead. "I’ll tell you how bad it was: I’d bought this old plantation along the eastern rift—within sight of Kilimanjaro—and was fixing up whenever I had the chance, the odd week or fortnight here and there.

"Seven years I stuck at it. Not paint and wallpaper, either, mind. First I had to reclaim the land itself—sixty acres of it. Not as hard to do as to keep done the way things grow down there. I swear you could hear the grass grow. Then I raised the main house—which wasn’t much more than clapboards with a tin roof held in place by cobwebs to begin with—and installed a proper cellar only to find termites had got at the sills and cross-members – had to replace every last one of them.

"I figured it was worth the sweat and tears, though, since I meant to retire there—find the old maid daughter of some local missionary who’d be only too happy to settle in and see me through my dotage, since I don't have any other family . . . not anymore.

Every sou I had in the world went into the place. I was going to cash in my chips next furlough and erase myself from civilization; slip off the grid, as they say.

He paused, staring at the floor. That day in Nairobi, I booked into a hotel, took the longest, hottest shower in history, got on the next flight out and never looked back.

A protracted silence followed during which even the storm outside seemed to sit still and await developments. Dumas could hear the sweat forming on his temples and his back hurt so much he hardly noticed the pain in his legs or the cold stone floor freezing his buttocks to sleep. But there was no question of moving now.

Fuller loosed a long sigh on the centuries. It may be too late to look back.

Rhodes’ hands tensed. He let his eyes ask the obvious question.

Ebola’s in Europe.

It’s been there before, and not so long ago. They had to put down that poor dog in Spain. It was all fear-mongering, as far as I’m concerned. When Ebola comes, it won’t be on tip-toe, it’ll be in jackboots.

From what I understand, this is a new strain.

A mutation? Where?

Fuller didn’t answer immediately, but Rhodes didn’t prompt him. Fact of the matter is—I haven’t a clue.

What do you mean? If there’s been an outbreak, it has to be localized somewhere.

There hasn’t been an outbreak—yet.

Then how do you know it’s here?

Someone’s brought it in—on purpose.

ISIS?

Fuller shrugged. A bedmate: al-Sa’di’s people.

You’re joking

Shh! Fuller cautioned. Keep your voice down.

The place is closed to the public.

Maybe so, said Fuller, still. . .

Where does your information come from?

Out of Washington . . .

Oh, well, then.

It’s solid.

Solid? Out of Washington? Mutually exclusive terms.

"Well, discredit where discredit is due, Rhodes; we’re the ones who verified WMDs in Iraq . . ."

Rhodes had worked up a head of steam, however, and would not be diverted.

"Since 9/11, the security infrastructure in the States has sprung up like a mushroom cloud, so fast that one hand doesn’t know what the other’s doing. Hell, the hand doesn’t even know what it’s doing itself!

"No doubt you’ve turned up this interesting tit-bit in your hole-in-the-wall at the Norman Shaw Building, Avery, but – in case it’s slipped your mind – there are now over 850,000 people with top-secret clearance in the United States. And more than a third of ‘em are contract employees! If that many people know something, what’s the secret!?

I’ve still got friends at half the departments in Liberty Square, and they’ve all bitched to me over drinks at one time or another about how everyone else serves the interest of their own little fiefdom, spending more time guarding their perks and parking spaces than they do at their jobs, much less battling terrorism. He bracketed the air with inverted commas on the last two words. "These people go to war with each other over which service is allowed to use which acronym! Since 9/11, something like 250 or 260 intelligence agencies have come into being, Avery; every one with its own population of directors, deputy directors, assistant deputy directors, associate assistant deputy directors, and hoards of crab-handed analysts duplicating efforts by cubed multiples, and they all do obeisance to Washington’s great Unspoken Mandate—POT: ‘Protect Our Turf.’ Anything to keep the funding coming."

Recognizing that Rhodes had allowed him his little diatribe, Fuller reciprocated in silence.

Feel better?

Rhodes exhaled sharply and, with a wan smile, said: If you gather from the preceding that I have little confidence in your intel from Washington, you would have inferred correctly.

Just between you and me? said Fuller.

Of course.

The information comes from Payton Brady.

Payton? Son of Walter, your old school chum?

Fuller nodded.

He was ten years old last time I saw him. What’s he now? Twelve?

Twenty-four, and snatched fresh from college by the CIA—who are having to pluck the low-hanging fruit because all their top personnel are defecting to the private sector, once they get TS/SCI clearance.

You’re saying Payton is a low-hanging fruit?

The exception. A real patriot, by all counts.

And to prove it, he’s committing treason to slip you some top-secret intel? Your own little Eddy Snowdon?

He’s one of those crab-handed analysts you mentioned. He sifted the information from a variety of sources, and pushed it up the chain-of-command.

Let me guess; the chain of command wasn’t interested.

If you can credit it. Fuller came as close to laughing as his physiognomy would allow.

Dumas swallowed hard and tried to ignore a persistent tickle at the back of his throat.

That was the crowbar they were expecting to use to pry al-Sa’di out? The virus?

Fuller must have nodded, because Rhodes continued without interruption, How did they come by it?

Something else you won’t credit. Seems they came by it courtesy of our friends and EU allies the Dutch.

You’re joking, said Rhodes, but he knew levity was foreign to Fuller’s constitution.

The same crowd that perfected an airborne version of the H5N1 virus and were so proud of themselves they wanted to publish the recipe on the Internet? Yes. The very same, to a man.

I wasn’t serious.

Fuller shrugged. "Led by Dr. Henri Janvier of The Erasmus Medical Institute in Rotterdam. It took the pressure from the director of the U.S. National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity to put the kibosh on those plans. And Science and Nature decided against providing a forum for them."

But that was avian flu. Nothing to do with Ebola.

That’s where things get interesting. Janvier was apparently not best pleased when his government stifled him; no doubt there was a lot of prestige going begging . . .

Which means money. . .

Goes without saying. So—subsequent events gave rise to speculation that he might have found another way to spin his research into gold.

Sell it to terrorists.

I doubt he’d have put it so crudely – more likely he’d been approached by someone willing to fund his research and wasn’t interested in following the handful of cash to the pocket it came from: the late, formerly invincible Abubakar Shekau.

Boko Haram!

Flush with oil revenue, said Fuller, since driving the Christians out of northern Nigeria, massacring those who dared remain in Chibok and Mubi, and eviscerating the regional government, they’ve anointed themselves with the task of purifying Islam . . .

"By wiping out whoever won’t submit to Sharia. In shaa'Allah. "

"Their interpretation of it, at any rate.

But not with anything so sedate as H5N1, with only a 50% kill rate. They wanted a more lethal concoction, so they sponsored Janvier on a little scientific foray down to your old stomping grounds, some cave or other—

Kitum Cave, said Rhodes, on Mount Elgon in Uganda. I thought the WHO was going to bulldoze that place fifteen years ago. . . but they’ve made it a national park!

That sounds right. Some sort of Doomsday pit they’ve got themselves there apparently, eons of rot and filth brewing up a sort of primordial virus stew—swarming with distant cousins to HIV, from what I gather—

HIV is a head cold by comparison, Rhodes interrupted.

Be that as it may, said Fuller, Janvier’s idea was to officiate over the unholy union of H5N1 and certain traits of a strain of Ebola, creating an incurable disease— Armageddon in concentrate—so he could create a cure for it.

A regular Father Teresa . . .

Sanctified by the name of research, said Fuller.

I can’t imagine the identity of his benefactors remained unknown to him for long. So he’d have had to convince himself—rather allow himself to be convinced—that he’d somehow retain control. Can’t imagine he’d have made such a deal with Devil otherwise, no matter how out-of-joint his nose was—but he hadn’t reckoned on al-Sa’di’s tribe, who caught wind of the project. Of course they immediately grasped the potential of such a biological bargaining chip . . .

For blackmail.

In government circles it’s called negotiation but, yes, blackmail. ‘Either release al-Sa’di or we release the virus’.

From what I know of Boko Haram, I don’t see them just surrendering the goods to al-Sa’di’s people. Arab and African Muslims don’t often share the same bed.

Didn’t used to; there’ve been so many ideological splits since the Arab Spring, though, that the motivations behind the actions of a given group aren’t reducible to the standard Sunni-Sufi-Shi’ah formula. What we’re left with is theological quicksilver. So we don’t know how al-Sa’di’s crowd came into possession of . . . whatever they’re in possession of.

You think it was successful then, this ‘marriage’ between characteristics of H5N1 and Ebola?

Fuller shrugged again. No one knows for sure. What we do know is that Janvier’s dead.

How?

He was found in a river. What was left of him could only be identified by dental records.

Accident?

The first bullet may have been. Probably not the next four.

Rhodes absorbed this. Anyone else?

If you mean anything indicating an armed action between al-Sa’id’s people and Boko Haram, no. Of course, something like that could have taken place upriver. Who knows how far he’d drifted by the time the body was found.

My head’s spinning.

"In the words of the old song, it’s only just begun," said Fuller. He removed a small case of leather and gold from his inside coat pocket, opened it, and removed a small black cigar.

You shouldn’t smoke in here, said Rhodes reflexively.

Fuller put the cigar to his lips, lit it, and released a cloud of blue smoke upon the still, stale air. Smell of smoke is nothing new to the saints, he said. "They say the damned roast forever in fires just outside the walls of Heaven.

For the sake of argument, he continued, "let’s assume that—pursuant to what passes for logic amongst fanatics—al-Sa’id’s people killed Janvier, for whatever reason, then realized they may have acted precipitately. My guess is it would probably occur to them that they’d need a medical person of some stripe to handle the witch’s brew they suddenly found themselves custodians of.

So, they kidnapped the nearest person who seemed to fit the bill, the head scientist with a CDC field team operating in the same region under the auspices of the U.N. and the World Health Organization . . . an American woman named Thompson, Tompkins, something very like. He patted his pockets. It’s in my notebook.

Nevermind about that, said Rhodes impatiently. I find myself thinking questions I don’t want the answers to, said Rhodes. "Is it airborne?"

We’re operating on worse-case assumptions. So, let’s assume so. The most recent generations of H5N1 have what biologists call a long hang time—I take it that means they can survive a while in the air . . .

Outside a host, Rhodes concluded, nodding slightly.

Yes. From what I understand most viruses break down pretty quickly under ultra violet light—sunlight, what have you. In all likelihood, this lot does too, but—again, assuming the worst—not nearly so quickly. As a serum, properly kept—freeze-dried, for example—it could, in theory, last indefinitely.

So, they’ve got this doctor, this woman, playing nursemaid to Satan’s spittle while they carry out the negotiations, Rhodes whispered hoarsely.

Assuming she’s not in on it, somehow.

Oh, great! You didn’t mention that. Is she some kind of academic nutcase?

Not as far as we know. I have people digging into her background. Until we have a clearer picture, we have to consider the outside chance. You never know.

I don’t suppose al-Sa’di’s friends would be content with his carcass?

They don’t know. I have no way of contacting them. All to the good, I expect. God knows what they’ll do if they find out he’s dead; very loudly blame us for it, at the least. I shudder to think what reprisals that might reap in the present atmosphere. In any event, they’re not likely to fold their tents and gently steal away.

You’ve managed to keep it quiet.

So far.

Another question I don’t want answered: What’s all this got to do with me? Rhodes had mastered his nervous hands and the color had returned to his face. Why drag me here?

Fuller shuffled in his seat. I think you know.

If you think I’ll have anything to do with that . . . that pestilence, Rhodes protested in a loud whisper, you haven’t been listening. I wouldn’t get within fifty miles of it.

You may be within a mile of it already, for all we know. Fuller’s voice was calm and even.

I don’t care, Rhodes protested. I’m not going to do it. I’m retired. Remember? I’m the one in twenty who survives this racket with his sanity reasonably intact . . .

Listen, Daniel, Fuller interrupted softly. You've got to know—I'm prepared to do whatever it takes to get you put you onto this. The brief silence that followed was laden with meaning. Anything.

Rhodes looked up with a start. You wouldn’t do that Avery. But the look in his eyes betrayed the certainty that he would. Apart from having been at school together, you swore. . . Rhodes protested, forgetting to whisper. You couldn’t possibly . . .

I think you should read this before you assume what I will or won’t do.

The hands in the lower triangle, nervous again, received an envelope and opened it. The eyes in the upper triangle read and widened. This is monstrous! he gasped, glancing nervously from the paper to Fuller.

It’s a monstrous business, trading in people’s secrets, said Fuller coolly. "I think the end of the Cold War has left us with too much time on our hands.

Six copies of that letter will be on their way to the papers by special messenger at six o’clock if you refuse to take it on.

Rhodes was dumbfounded. He knew Fuller wasn’t making idle threats. A reply died on his lips as he re-read the letter in disbelief. I can’t believe you’d do this.

I’ve done much worse. You know that, Fuller replied. We both traded in our souls long ago. That’s the price of admission. I’m sure I could have made you see sense eventually, without having to resort to this, but there’s no time. Diplomacy is the first casualty of crisis.

You must have some idea where it is, said Rhodes, with bitter resignation. He took a cigarette lighter from his pocket and lit the paper, holding it between his fingers until it had burned completely. He dropped it to the floor and ground the charcoal to dust on the ancient stones beneath his feet.

Europe, said Fuller stoically. That’s all I know. Could be anywhere. I’ve had two calls, one from France, the most recent from a mobile phone in London.

A mobile phone.

Very veiled language. I doubt anyone who wasn’t privy to the first call could have made the least sense of it. I barely made sense of it myself. At any rate, that doesn't tell us much about where the serum is.

It tells us there's someone in London who knows where it is, said Rhodes flatly. How many people can you give me?

Silence.

Avery? said Rhodes. How many?

None, I’m afraid.

You can’t mean it—you’re mad!

There’s someone in the department—someone over me at the Committee—who’s in their pocket.

Has the NHS been informed? Public Health England?

You know as well as I, Rhodes, that of all the bureaucratic behemoths of inertia comprising the government, none are as aggressively opposed to action of any kind. There’s no time to involve them.

I heard – when I was reading about that Spanish nurse who contracted the virus – some company had developed a vaccine. Has nothing come of it?

GlaxoSmithKline was working with the U.S. Institutes of Health and conducted human safety trials for some concoction they came up with, a variation of something called ZMapp that had been used to treat Ebola in the past, but the EU Medicines Agency wouldn't authorize its use. It’s still making its way through the FDA approval process in the U.S.

It’s been months!

Years.

Rhodes steadied himself, resting an outstretched hand on the statue of Robert Peel. You should take your intel to Secretary Scott directly.

The Home Office is leakier than Parliament . . . or the Titanic, take your pick. If Al-Sa’di's people were to find out what we’re up to . . .

However—that's not to say you can't buy your own help . . .

Once again the hands received an envelope.

What's this?

A government draft-to-bearer for a half-million pounds.

A half-million? How did you come by that kind of money if no one at COBRA knows?

"I borrowed some of the money from the little caché we discovered in Al-Sa’di's belongings when we searched his flat in Basra. Heroin money: all duly catalogued and stuck in an interest-bearing account 'til further notice.

Computers are wonderful things. It pays to keep up with technology, you know—especially when one can do so at the department's expense. After hours, of course.

You stole it.

Temporarily appropriated.

It'll turn up missing in accounts at the end of the month, said Rhodes.

The 27th, to be exact, Fuller replied. That's when they close the books.

They'll find out. That could be enough to queer things, even for you.

The older man was quiet for a moment. Imagine the population of Europe suffering from Ebola in the manner you described, he said at last. "I think it’s