A few minutes ago he had been focused on the terms of his negotiation with Biddle. Now Alex Morse had put the whole deal in jeopardy. If she weren't so goddamned observant, her visit might have meant little. But she was. If Morse could look at a photo of this clinic for a few seconds and make the connection to Pullo's restaurant, then she would eventually realize that the army major in the VCP photo she had noticed in his office was the same man she had seen walking into the clinic this afternoon. Thirty years had passed since their VCP days, but Biddle looked essentially the same. His hair was gray now, but he still had his hair, the son of a bitch. And not only had Morse seen Biddle enter the clinic-she had exchanged words with him. Yes, she would remember him, all right. And once she did, she would quickly uncover the true nature of the VCP. And that would allow her to track Eldon Tarver from his old life to his new one.

Eldon couldn't take that chance. He could not take on his new identity until Alex Morse was dead.

He was lucky that Pearson had called to warn him that Morse might show up. She made a big deal about the restaurant, Eldon, and she's the type to come down and make a nuisance of herself. I probably said too much, but Chris Shepard is a highly reputable internist from Natchez. I just wanted you to know, so you wouldn't be blindsided by the girl.

"Blindsided," Dr. Tarver murmured. "FUBAB, more like."

Killing an FBI agent was risky. If you did that, you were asking to be hounded to the ends of the earth for as long as you lived. In the carport he had acted on instinct. He would have to give it careful thought. Right now he had business to take care of: the biggest deal of his life. He flushed the toilet for cover, then walked back into his office, sat behind his desk, and folded his hands Buddha-style over his stomach.

"You want to know what I've got, Edward?"

Biddle's pale blue eyes were those of a man who had handled many critical negotiations. Bullshit did not fly in the rooms he worked. "You know me, Eldon. Straight to business."

Dr. Tarver leaned back in his chair. "I've got exactly what you were looking for all those years ago."

"Which is?"

"The Holy Grail."

Biddle just stared.

"The perfect weapon."

"Perfect is a mighty big word, Eldon."

Dr. Tarver smiled. He doubted they ever said "mighty big" at Yale, which was where Biddle had gone to college. He must have picked it up at Detrick.

"How about a weapon that is one hundred percent lethal, yet which no one could ever prove was a weapon at all? It makes BW agents like anthrax or even smallpox relics of the Dark Ages. Wasn't it you who spoke of the Holy Grail at Detrick, Edward? A weapon that couldn't be perceived as a weapon?"

"Yes. But every scientist who ever worked for me helped prove that it was impossible."

"Oh, it's possible. It already exists." Eldon opened his desk drawer and took out a small vial filled with brownish liquid. "Here it is."

"What is it?"

"A retrovirus."

Biddle sniffed. "Source?"

"Simian, of course, as we always suspected. And as AIDS proved viable."

"What do you call it?"

Dr. Tarver smiled. "Kryptonite."

Biddle wasn't laughing. "Are you serious?"

"It's just a working name. The actual viral pedigree must remain my proprietary secret, for now. But if you decide to-"

"Buy it?"

"Just so. If you decide to buy it, then you can look behind the curtain and you can call it whatever you wish."

Biddle rubbed his hands together with a dry, grainy sound. "Tell me what else makes this Kryptonite a perfect weapon."

"First, it has a long incubation period. Ten to twelve months right now, with death following in an average of sixteen months."

"Death from what?"

"Cancer."

Biddle tilted his head to one side. "Our old friend."

"Yes."

"The retrovirus induces it directly? Or is there immune breakdown first?"

"Selective breakdown. Only the necessary steps. It switches off the cellular death mechanism, granting immortality. It disguises itself from killer T cells. It begins producing its own growth factor. All the best viral strategies."

Biddle was already thinking about the larger implications. "Eldon, the indiscriminate nature of that kind of weapon renders it unusable on a large scale. You know that."

Tarver leaned forward. "I've solved that problem."

"How?"

"I've already created a vaccine. I grow it in horses."

Biddle pursed his lips. "So we'd have to vaccinate all our forces prior to using the weapon."

"Yes, yes, but we already do that. You could do it under cover of any other immunization."

Biddle was frowning now, suspicious that his time was being wasted. "But what about the general population? If we vaccinated the general population, it would set off all sorts of alarms. And don't tell me we could do it under the guise of avian flu vaccine or something. You could never keep it a secret-not in this day and age."

Eldon could hardly contain himself. "I can also sabotage the virus after infection, during the early stages of replication. Before oncogenesis occurs."

Biddle's poker face finally slipped. "You can kill the virus after infection?"

"I can wipe it out."

"No one can kill a virus once it's established in the body."

Dr. Tarver settled back in his chair, his confidence unshakable. "I created this virus, Edward. And I can destroy it."

Biddle was shaking his head, but Eldon saw the excitement in his eyes.

"After about three weeks," Eldon went on, "there's no stopping the cascade. But during that window, I can short-circuit the infection."

"So what you're telling me is-"

"I have your weapon for China."

Biddle's lips parted. He had the look of a man whose mind has just been read, and read accurately.

"I know you, Edward," Tarver said with a sly smile. "I know that's why you're here. I see what's happening in the world. I know the limits of oil reserves and strategic metals. I know where those reserves are flowing, where the heavy manufacturing is going. I'm no geopolitician, but I see the tide turning. The new cold war can't be more than twenty years off. Maybe less."

Biddle chose not to comment.

"I know the capabilities of Chinese nuclear submarines," Tarver went on. "I know about their missile program. And even high school students know the size of their standing army. Almost three million strong, and growing. The real strength of that number lies in the fact that life is cheap there, Edward. Casualties mean nothing-unlike the country we happen to be sitting in."

Biddle shifted in his seat and spoke softly. "Your point being?"

"The Chinese aren't the Russians. You won't be able to spend them into oblivion. They already keep our economy afloat. If they decide to pull the plug now, we'll only have one option. Going nuclear."

Biddle nodded almost imperceptibly.

"And we won't do that," Tarver asserted. "You know we won't, because we won't be able to. The yellow men can afford to lose half a billion people. We can't. More important, they're willing to lose them. And we're not."

Biddle's eyes were half-closed. He was probably put off by the amateur strategizing, but Eldon knew he had made his point, however clumsily.

"Is this Kryptonite sexually transmissible?" Biddle asked quietly.

"One variant is, and one is not."

A tight smile. "That's convenient."

"You won't believe what I've accomplished, Edward. You want deniable political assassination? Give me one tube of blood from your target. I'll induce cancer in vitro, then you can reinject the blood into him. He'll be dead of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma eighteen months later."

Biddle's smile broadened. "I always said you were my most promising egghead, Eldon."