The Ninth Day (38 page)

“You go. I’ll catch up,” Roland said.

Emma slowed. “I think we’re far enough away.”

Ten minutes farther, and Emma saw the runway off to her right. She and Roland turned off onto a beaten earth path that led straight to it.

A small plane sat on the runway. The waning moonlight hit some reflective sections, and they glowed. Oz’s motorcycle was parked next to it with Vanderlock still sitting on the seat. Seconds later a car pulled up, driving past them and stopping about twenty feet away.

Banner stepped out of the car. Emma thought it was the second time that evening that she was profoundly happy to see someone. Sumner came out of the passenger side and his eyes went right to her. He looked relieved, then glanced at Roland. Banner walked up.

“Everyone all right?”

Emma nodded, not sure she could speak normally quite yet and wondering how it was that Banner could.

“Surprised to see you in the States, Vanderlock,” Banner said.

“Not as surprised as I am to be here,” Vanderlock replied. He took a package of cigarettes out of his pocket, lit one, and inhaled.

Banner turned to Roland. “Glad to see you got out alive. How’d you do it?”

Roland jerked his head at Emma. “Your operative was hiding in the trees. Lucky break for me.”

“In that case, can you vouch for her? Cancel the warrant?”

Roland nodded. “I’m pretty sure I can. Especially if the leprosy story pans out.” Emma opened her mouth to protest and Roland put up a hand to stay her. “Which I know it will. The biggest problem I’m facing is you.” Roland indicated Vanderlock. “By rights I need to arrest him for the illegal importation of drugs.”

“As do I,” Sumner said.

Vanderlock rolled his eyes. “I was coerced. Does no one care?”

Banner pointed at Sumner’s plane sitting on the tarmac. “You want to fly me to St. Martin in the Caribbean? You do that and then technically you’re working for me. Gives you some credibility and gets you out of the country, fast.”

“I’ll fly you wherever you want to go, but I’d rather do it in my own plane,” Vanderlock said. “You still have it?” he said to Sumner.

“It’s at an impound center in Nevada, so this one will have to do. Nice paint job on the Fokker, though.”

Vanderlock took another drag off his cigarette. “Blame the chemist.”

Banner tossed Sumner the keys to the Marquis. “You and Agent Roland deal with the rest of the Bureau when it gets here? Tell them the truth?”

Roland nodded. “I’ll back them down. But what about the leprosy? Or whatever it is?”

“We’ll all need to be tested. But I have these,” Emma pulled the investigational antibiotic out of her pocket. “I need to find Oz. See if they worked.”

“They work. Oz sent me a text saying they did. He’s still keeping low, but promised to keep his phone on in case we needed him,” Banner said.

Banner pointed to Emma but spoke to Vanderlock. “Let Emma take the motorcycle.” And to her he said, “Why don’t you head home? I’ll have the Darkview attorney contact you to straighten out any loose ends.”

Emma nodded. She shook a few pills out of the bottle, placed them in her pocket and handed Vanderlock the container. “Keep taking these, then.” She gave the rest to Banner. “For you and Sumner.” She looked at Agent Roland. “Can you arrange to get me some more?”

He nodded. “Of course.”

“Come on, Vanderlock. Let’s go,” Banner said.

Vanderlock lowered the cycle’s kickstand and stood up. “Key’s in the ignition. You still have that cell phone?”

Emma withdrew it from her pocket and gave it to him. He stepped next to her, took the phone, and used one hand to manipulate the buttons while the other kept the cigarette in play. Emma peered at the screen, and saw that he was inputting his name and a phone number at the Contacts page. When he was finished he hit “save” and handed it back to her. “You need anything, ever, you call me.”

Emma nodded.

He stepped up to her and bent his head down. When his face was inches from hers he paused. “Why don’t you come with me to St. Martin? You’ll like it, I promise you,” he said.

Emma understood exactly what he was saying. She shook her head. “Maybe next time.”

He smiled. “I’d show you a preview, but God knows what I’d give you right now and Sumner is still holding that gun.”

“Discretion is always a wise move. Especially when Sumner has a gun in his hand.”

Vanderlock stepped back and smiled a large, happy smile. He sketched a wave at Sumner, who was leaning against the Marquis, his arms folded across his chest. Sumner nodded back. Banner glanced between the two men and at Emma, raising his eyebrows just a touch in a question. She lifted her shoulders. Banner gave her a devilish grin, which surprised her, coming from him. He followed Vanderlock to the airplane.

She turned her attention to Sumner. “You shouldn’t have kissed me. Now you have it.”

“I’ll see you in a few days. We should talk,” he said.

Emma put up a hand. “I don’t want to talk.”

He gave her a slight smile. “You can’t run forever.”

She walked to him, stopping only when her body hit his folded arms. She looked into his eyes, which held humor, as if he was enjoying the moment.

“I can run for a very, very long time,” she said.

Chapter 46

E
mma saw a man trudging along the road in the early-morning light, just where the GPS phone tracking system said he would be. He wore battered jeans and a black tee shirt. She pulled alongside.

“You need a lift?” Oz took in the motorcycle and her driving it. His face broke into a huge, beautiful smile.

“Nice ride,” he said.

“You like it? It belongs to a friend of mine. I’m bringing it back to him.”

“I’ve been hitchhiking, but no one will pick me up. Guess I look a little scary.”

Emma cocked her head to one side. He must not have looked in a mirror recently, but the sores on his face had diminished from an angry red to pale pink, and portions of his neck were clear.

“You look much better than you think. How do you feel?”

He tipped his hand from side to side. “Less numb, but that’s both good and bad. As the nerves come back I’m feeling all sorts of pain. I do okay as long as I take the ibuprofen. And the prednisone seems to really help.”

“Climb on,” Emma said.

Oz hesitated. “You look normal. What if I infect you?”

Emma shrugged. “I’m taking the pills, too.” Oz swung a leg over and settled in behind her. “Where you going?” she said.

“East. I want MIT to take me back.”

“Now
that’s
a plan.”

She opened the throttle and brought the motorcycle up to speed, feeling the wind in her hair and the sun on her face.

Author’s Note

Once again, I seem to have stumbled upon research that was just at the tipping point. This time: leprosy and armadillos. I started writing this novel with an incorrect belief that leprosy had been eradicated worldwide. While it has been greatly reduced, the disease, now called Hansen’s Disease, persists. Lucky for us, leprosy is now completely curable with a course of antibiotics, and bears little resemblance to the fictional disease in the novel. My thanks to Dr. Carlotta Hill for her explanation of the real disease and its treatment. For further information on Hansen’s Disease (leprosy), you can go to www.hrsa.gov/hansens or call 1-800-642-2477.

Dr. Hill also confirmed my suspicion that one might be able to become infected with leprosy from contact with armadillos. Armadillos carry massive bacterial loads but are unaffected by the disease. Their proliferation in the American Southwest and Mexico made them the perfect animal upon which to hinge my fictional disease. Imagine my surprise when, several months after speaking with Dr. Hill, I happened to read an article in the
Chicago Tribune
about researchers having confirmed that armadillos can transmit the disease to humans. I’ve never eaten armadillo meat, and after that article you can be sure that I won’t!

Acknowledgments

This book was a joy to write, and the team of people involved in bringing it to publication made the rest easy. Thanks to my agent, Barbara Poelle, for her marvelous humor and good advice. My editor, Lyssa Keusch, made my year by commenting that she was unable to put the manuscript down. Danielle Bartlett, my publicist at HarperCollins, is more organized than I will ever be, and I’m so grateful for it! Every year I’m intrigued to see the tour and marketing ideas that she puts together. Dana Kaye at Kaye Publicity handles the rest of the myriad big and little things that go into a book launch and always manages to throw in a cutting edge concept. Thanks also to Adrienne Di Pietro for her advice on all things marketing.

This book received an outstanding cover. Thanks to Lyssa and the graphics team for creating such a standout design.

In researching for this book I roped in a longtime friend from the years at my former law firm where we handled food, drug, and medical-device matters. Thanks to Jeana Bicknell, girlfriend and FDA compliance expert, for her excellent pharmaceutical lab input and handy tip on opening a wine bottle without use of a corkscrew. You’ll be seeing the second idea in book number four.

Anita Pope is a Southern girl and knew exactly who I should speak to about white lightning. No cork problems with this brew. Thank you to Michael Sims for the recipe instructions that he remembered hearing from his paternal grandfather about stills during the prohibition era.

Thanks also to my advance readers (and great writers), Darwyn Jones and Sharon Williamson, for keeping me on my toes.

I can’t thank author Steve Berry enough for his wonderful blurb! When Lyssa sent me the email containing it I was ecstatic and grateful to him for taking the time to read the manuscript.

And finally, to my family, who recognized that I was caught up in writing this story and began to quietly manage the household around me until the final word was written. Thank you.

Turn the page for a sneak preview

of the next installment

in the pulse-pounding series

featuring brilliant biochemist Emma Caldridge,

coming soon in paperback from

HARPER

E
mma Caldridge found the bloody offering on her credenza just before midnight. She had been working late, preparing samples and organizing slides in the makeshift lab set up in the rented villa’s spacious garage and had returned to the main house for another cup of coffee.

A small votive candle flickered next to the pile of feathers and hacked off rooster foot, all arranged in a triangle on top of a pentagram drawn in a red substance that looked like blood. Emma’s employer, Pure Chemistry, was located in Miami and Emma had seen Santeria altars before, with their animal sacrifice and elaborate rituals, but this was nothing like that. This was voodoo. She pulled a pencil out of a cup next to the phone and used the eraser end to lift the mass of feathers. Underneath she found the doll. The body was fashioned of hastily stitched burlap, that sported brown yarn for hair and two black felt dots for eyes. A toothpick jutted from the center of the doll’s forehead.

Emma snorted at the crude scare tactic. She was a scientist, unafraid of ghosts or demons and unbelieving of things that went bump in the night. If it made noise, then a human, animal, or physical element created it.

She heard the sound of breaking glass in the distance. The intruder was in the garage.

She dropped the pencil and ran through the darkened house, out the French doors at the back of the kitchen and onto the lawn. As she neared the garage she saw the shape of something that may have been a man, working his way through her carefully prepared slides. He swept something across the table and Emma watched in disbelief as bottles, jars and the containers holding a week’s worth of work went crashing to the cement floor. She ran toward him, the sharp gravel of the drive cutting into the soles of her feet.

The garage’s overhead light cast a yellow glow over the tables that Emma had set up in order to form the workspace. The man, if that what the humpbacked shape was, pushed over the nearest table, upending it and sending another set of petri dishes, test tubes and even a microscope tumbling to the floor.

“Stop it!” Emma’s voice was harsh. The man froze. As she neared she could see the machete in his hand. It was this that he had used to sweep the bottles off the table. “That’s my work. You have no right to be here.” The man stayed still, saying nothing and keeping his face turned away. Emma heard the gravel crunch behind her.

“He responds only to me.”

Emma turned around. A woman stood at the corner of the drive. The weak moonlight lit her dark skin. She wore a scarf wrapped around her head and a sarong skirt was knotted at her hip. The woman smiled and her teeth, straight and white, glowed in the night, giving her a feral appearance. “He’s my slave. A zombie.”