Someone got hold of my blood-or semen-then altered it and reinjected it into me. If that's the case, the odds are against Lansing. Shane cares more about money than medicine, so he doesn't have that depth of knowledge. We're looking for superdoctors, Alex. People who are experts on bone marrow, genetics, oncogenic viruses. There aren't many of those in this entire state, and the ones we do have are right across the street."

Alex leaned forward in her chair, excitement in her eyes. "How's your body? Can you function?"

"I think so. I'd better take a shower, though. I'm not going to impress anybody smelling like vomit."

"Good call." She walked to the bedside phone. "I'm going to order some breakfast. Can you eat anything?"

"Toast and a bowl of grits. And hot tea."

She smiled broadly. "You're the only man I've spent the night with in the last ten years who ordered grits in the morning."

"Welcome home."

Andrew Rusk was ten miles south of Jackson when his fear hit critical mass. A few days ago, there had been only one car following him. Now there was a motorized battalion, operating in shifts. All American cars, most of the drivers white males between twenty-five and forty-five. He was in deep shit. Cursing Alex Morse with visceral hatred, he swerved off the interstate at the Byram exit and pulled into the drive-through lane of the Wendy's restaurant there. Two cars followed him.

"Goddamnit!" he shouted.

Last night, when he received the Viagra spam from Dr. Tarver, Rusk had been elated. He didn't know where Tarver had been hiding, but he was sure that the doctor had good reason to be out of contact. After all, they had hardly spent more than a few minutes in each other's company over the past five years. Last night this trip had seemed like a leisurely drive down to the hunting camp. Now it was impossible. If he led those sons of bitches in the government sedans to Chickamauga, Dr. Tarver would kill them and him without a second's hesitation.

Rusk ordered a cheeseburger and a Coke and watched one of the tail cars park in the lot a few yards away. What the hell could he do? If they were following him like this, then they were tapping his phones as well. The office, the house, his cell phones. For a moment he wondered if Carson Barnett had turned him in.

No way, he assured himself. Barnett wanted out of his marriage, and he was willing to do anything to accomplish that. It was that fucking Morse. But was it only Morse? That was the question.

Last night, Thora Shepard had called his house fourteen times. After two hysterical messages had been left on his answering machine, Rusk unplugged the phone. When he arrived at his office this morning, Janice had reported twelve messages left by a Mrs. Shepard, each one more frantic than the last. Thora wasn't so stupid as to have stated her reason for needing to talk to him, but something told him that Alex Morse was involved. That, or Thora was having second thoughts about killing her husband. That wouldn't surprise Rusk. The woman might be movie-star hot, but she was also nuts, as he had seen the first time around. Typical society chick, really. She looked as if she had it all together, but underneath the facade she didn't know whether she was going or coming.

He took his cheeseburger from the girl in the window and paid with a $10 bill. "Ketchup," he said. "I need some ketchup."

He took a huge gulp of his Coke and pulled into the exit lane. One of the tails pulled right up behind him. These guys weren't even trying to conceal themselves.

The funny thing about Thora Shepard, he thought, crossing over the interstate and turning onto I-55 North, was that they hadn't even had to kill her first husband. The poor guy had died of natural causes. Of course, Rusk had never told her that. Thora had made her payments just as instructed, and he was happy to take her money. The irony of that woman becoming a return customer was almost too much. But Rusk didn't have time to enjoy it now. Thora was flipping out, and if she lost it in front of the wrong people, it could cost him dearly. He needed to make contact with Dr. Tarver, and soon. He had no idea how to do that, but as he roared north toward Jackson, he realized that he didn't have to-Dr. Tarver would do that for him. All he had to do was play it cool. Sometime in the next twelve hours, he would walk around a corner or step into an elevator or climb into his car, and Tarver would be there. Like magic. That was how the guy worked. And all the FBI agents in the world wouldn't be able to stop him.

Rusk looked at his rearview mirror and laughed. It was time to cash in his chips and split the country. He only hoped they could fleece Carson Barnett before D-day. Barnett would be their pièce de résistance, and he would set them up for the last couple of decades of their lives. As the interstate flowed beneath him like a gray river, Rusk saw himself on a sun-drenched beach with a dark rum drink in his hand and Lisa lying nude beside him. He hated to leave the kids behind, but there was nothing to be done about that. Business was business. He slowed down until the dark sedan behind him had no choice but to pass. As its clean-cut driver glanced his way, Rusk smiled like the Cheshire cat.

Dr. Tarver regretted the look of dumb incomprehension on his adoptive brother's face. It was exactly the look he had expected, the puzzled disbelief of a child being told that his dog has been run over by a car.

"All of them?" Judah said. "Every one?"

"I'm afraid so," said Eldon. "I'm sorry."

"Even the chimps?"

They were standing in the back room, beside the primate cages, not the best place for this discussion. "The chimps most of all. Nothing can remain that would tell anyone what we've been doing here."

Judah's face was working like that of a boy doing sums that were beyond him. "I thought what we were doing here was good."

"It is good, Judah. But people won't understand that. You know what they're like."

"I know, but, but what if I kept them? Just some of them?"

"I wish you could. I really do. But you know that's impossible."

"I been studying hard. I been practically running the front this past year. Why couldn't I keep running the breeding part, you know? Just the beagles?"

"You don't really know what's involved in the business part, Judah. There's so much more to it than taking care of the dogs. There's ordering and records, computers and taxes. Plus, you have to be licensed. If I'm not here, the whole thing just doesn't work."

A new fear entered Judah's eyes. "Where are you going?"

"I don't know that yet. But I'm going to send for you once I get there."

"Are you?"

"Don't I always?"

Judah's eyes darted toward the cages again. "Why can't we just give the animals away?"

"Because they're sick. They're carrying special germs now. They would infect other animals, and that might be a disaster. It might even cause Armageddon, like in-"

"The Revelation of St. John," Judah said in the voice of an automaton. "Chapter sixteen. The seven vials of the angels. My name is in that book." His voice dropped in pitch. "'And the second angel poured his bowl into the sea, and it became as the blood of a dead man. Every living thing that was in the sea, and had life, died, and-'"

"That's right," Eldon said, cutting him off before the spirit took him. "You don't want to be called to account before God for bringing that to pass, do you?"

After long reflection, Judah shook his big head.

"I tell you what," Eldon said, as if just thinking of this idea on the spot. "You take care of the beagles and leave the primates to me. I know how hard that would be for you."

Judah bit his bottom lip. "The beagles is hard, too, you know? I know every one of ' em now. Every one has a given name."