Malone braced himself, raising his hands offensively against Jeb. “You want some of this?”

“Mr. Malone.”

Malone turned toward a bureaucratic-looking man in his late fifties.

“I think we should talk,” the man said.

The man had thinning gray hair and was of average height and weight, but his rigidly straight posture and commanding eyes, seemingly magnified by his metal-rimmed spectacles, gave him a presence out of proportion to his size. Accompanied by two assistants, he had just emerged from a room farther along the hallway. The door remained open.

“Is Sienna in there?”

The man spread his hands. “See for yourself.”

Malone passed the first guard, ignoring the injured man’s attempt to stand. Rapidly, he also passed the bureaucrat and entered the room, which was an office with glass bookshelves, a computer on a desk, and several closed-circuit TV monitors, one of which showed the wreckage in Malone’s room. He didn’t find Sienna in the office, and he didn’t see her on any of the screens.

“I’ve told you what I know,” Malone said as the man entered with his assistants, followed by Jeb, who shut the door. “I didn’t get involved in this to be treated like a prisoner. Where’s Sienna? I want to see her.”

“Yes, your file made clear you have a problem dealing with authority.”

“You want to see a problem?” Malone picked up the computer’s monitor and hurled it onto the floor. The screen shattered. “You want to see another problem?”

“You’re a problem. You’ve made your point. Now let me make mine.”

“Why do I get the feeling we’re still not communicating?”

“Ten minutes.”

“What?”

“You need to understand some things.”

Malone tensed, studying the man, suspicious.

“You’ve had a long journey. Take a seat. Would you like something to eat or drink?”

“You’re wasting your ten minutes.”

“My name is Jeremy Laster.”

“I doubt you’d give me your real name, but if that’s how you want it, fine, you’re Jeremy Laster.”

Laster sighed. “Considering your relationship with Mrs. Bellasar” – he put a slight emphasis on Mrs., as if he felt Malone needed to be reminded – “I can understand why you’re impatient to see her, but that can’t be permitted for a while.”

“How long?”

“It’s impossible to say.”

“That’s what you think.” Malone started toward the door.

Laster’s two assistants blocked it.

“I still have nine minutes,” Laster said.

Malone debated whether to try to force his way out, then told Laster, “Use them.”

“You’ve insisted you’re not associated with us. That makes it difficult to confide in you. Within the Agency, we operate on a need-to-know basis. But someone on the outside…” Laster made a gesture of futility.

“Join the Agency and you’ll tell me what’s going on, is that it?”

“Hardly. I’ve seen enough to be sure we don’t want you.”

“I’m glad we agree about something.”

“What I’m trying to do is make clear how unusual the circumstances are that would lead me to explain anything to you.” Laster went over to the desk and picked up a one-page document. “This is a confidentiality statement. It forbids you to disclose what I’m about to tell you. The penalty for violating it is severe.”

“Like an unmarked grave in the woods?”

“Be serious.”

“Who’s joking?” Malone took the document and read it. “So I’m supposed to sign this, and then you’ll tell me what’s going on?”

Laster handed him a pen.

Malone impatiently used it. “Fine. Now talk.”

“At last we’re making progress.” Laster put the document in his briefcase and pulled out a black-and-white photograph of the man Sienna had met in Istanbul. It was similar to Malone’s sketch. “As Mr. Wainright told you, he recognized this man. Tariq Ahmed. Another black-market arms dealer. We’re extremely curious about the purpose for their meeting. And we think the answer involves the two men you saw at Bellasar’s estate.” Laster pulled out two other black-and-white photographs. “Thanks to your accurate sketches, a team from our Russian desk was able to identify them as Vasili Gribanov and Sergei Bulganin.” Laster paused. “They’re specialists in biowar-fare.”

“Bio…”

“In 1973, the Soviets established a biological weapons research and production system called Bio-preparat. Gribanov and Bulganin came on board in 1983. Various scientists had their specialties. Marburg, anthrax, pneumonic plague. Gribanov and Bulganin chose smallpox.”

Malone felt cold. “But I thought smallpox had been destroyed.”

“Eradicated from the general population, yes. The last known case was in 1977. But if it ever came back, the World Health Organization decided that a small amount of the virus ought to be kept frozen for research purposes. The United States has some. So do the Russians. Scientists being what they are, they love to tinker. Gribanov and Bulganin decided that smallpox in its natural form wasn’t deadly enough. They altered its genetic makeup to make it more aggressive.”

“But that’s insane.” Malone’s skin itched as if he’d been infected.

“For eight years, Gribanov and Bulganin worked happily, running their experiments and performing tests. But in 1991, the Soviet Union collapsed, and the research money stopped. They found themselves out of a job. So they offered their skills to another employer.”

“Bellasar.”

Laster nodded. “As it turns out, Ahmed is less thorough in his security arrangements than Bellasar. By intensifying our electronic surveillance on his associates, we’ve been able to learn about the meeting in Istanbul. It seems Bellasar has no qualms about selling a biological weapon to anyone prepared to meet his price, but he doesn’t want to be linked directly to the weapon. What he’d prefer is to sell it to Ahmed and then let Ahmed dispose of it as he wishes. That’s why the meeting didn’t go as smoothly as Bellasar hoped. Ahmed figures that if he’s going to take the heat for making the weapon available, he wants better financial terms than Bellasar is offering. Bellasar’s argument is that Ahmed shouldn’t be greedy, that Ahmed’s already guaranteed a hefty profit when he sells it.”

“To whom?”

“That’s one of various things we’re hoping Mrs. Bellasar will tell us.”

“She doesn’t know.”

Laster only stared at him.

Malone shook his head in disgust. “What’s the weapon’s delivery system?”

“Microscopic powder released via aerosol containers. The best method is to have an aircraft open the containers while flying over a city. Our experts calculate that a half dozen aerosol containers opened on a windy day could contaminate several square miles.”

“But the thing’s uncontrollable,” Malone said. “Before victims start showing symptoms, some of them could get on planes and fly to major cities all over the world. It could cause a global epidemic.”

“Not in this case,” Laster said. “The weapon has a fail-safe feature that prevents it from spreading beyond its target.”

“Fail-safe?”

“What makes the weapon so unique is that Gribanov and Bulganin genetically engineered the smallpox virus so it can’t infect anyone unless it combines with another virus, a benign but rare one.”

“Why? What purpose would that serve?”

“You release the benign virus first. As soon as the target population is infected, the lethal virus is then released. But anyone who hasn’t been infected with the benign virus can’t be infected by the lethal one, which means that even if someone who’s infected with the lethal virus gets on a plane before the symptoms show up, that person isn’t going to start an epidemic in another country, because that other population hasn’t previously been exposed to the companion virus.”

“Unless someone exposed to the benign virus has already traveled to that country.”