“Can’t happen.”

“Why not?”

“The benign virus has a six-hour life span when it isn’t combined with the lethal one. It doesn’t travel well. By the time someone flew from Tel Aviv to Rome, Paris, or New York, say, it would have died. Anyone arriving with the lethal virus couldn’t pass it on.”

“Jesus.”

“This is a quantum leap in the notion of what a weapon can be,” Laster said. “Controlled massive destruction of human life without any destruction to property.”

“Why would anybody want to develop a weapon like that?” Jeb interrupted. “How the hell rich does Bellasar need to be?”

“It’s not about money. It’s about power,” Malone said.

Laster nodded. “So our profilers suggested, but their conclusion is theoretical. We’ve never had access to anyone who spent as much time with him as you did. Except for -”

“Sienna.”

“She knows the mechanisms that trigger his emotions. In our efforts to put him out of business, no observation from his wife is too small not to be of value to us.”

“So basically the debriefing could go on forever?”

Laster spread his hands fatalistically.

“You prick.”

“Millions of lives are at stake.”

“That doesn’t mean she has to be a prisoner.”

“Bellasar’s never going to stop searching for her. Do you honestly believe if we let her out of here – I don’t care under what new identity – that he won’t eventually find her? This is the safest place in the world for her.”

“Then why won’t you let me see her?”

“Because, if she feels as powerfully about you as you do about her, the longer she’s away from you, the more frustrated she’ll become. That’ll give us leverage. We’re not sure we can trust her. Maybe she’s having second thoughts about betraying her husband. Maybe she’s withholding crucial information. But if she knows she can’t see you until she convinces us she doesn’t have anything more to tell us, she’ll have greater motivation to confide in us.”

“To call you a prick is being generous,” Malone said. “You want to put Bellasar out of business? Send in a black-ops team and assassinate him. Bomb the hell out of the place. Scorch it to the ground and pour salt all over it.”

“We’d love to.”

“So why don’t -”

“Because we have to make sure the biological weapon is secure. When our team moves in, it’s going to be at the proper time and with the proper information.”

“Sienna and I gave you all the information we have.”

“That remains to be determined.”

“I want to see her.”

“By all means.” Laster pointed toward one of the closed-circuit television monitors.

Malone walked to it and felt his pulse increase. Seen from the back, Sienna peered out a large window similar to the one in his room. The image was black and white and grainy, from an angle that looked down and across the room at her. The lens had a fish-eye distortion. But nothing could obscure her beauty.

“This evening, we’re going to question her again about Bellasar’s sister,” Laster said. “None of us knew about her. We’re eager for more details.”

“Knock yourself out.”

When Malone returned to his room, it had been restored, the light fixture, table, and mirror replaced, the broken glass removed. Noticing that the closet door was ajar, he pulled it open and found clothes on hangers: a sport coat, two shirts, a pair of jeans, and a pair of slacks, all of them in his size and all of them new. Yeah, just like at Bellasar’s, he thought.

Through the window, the sky was becoming bleak, a shower approaching, leafless branches wavering in the breeze. He went over and watched specks of rain hit the glass. The room light was off. As the sky became grayer, the late afternoon felt like evening.

I should have made another attempt to reach her. With those two guards waiting for an excuse to get even? he thought. One of Laster’s assistants had been holding something that looked suspiciously like the kind of flat black case doctors kept syringes in. Malone was certain that if he’d made another attempt to get to Sienna, he’d have been sedated.

The way Bellasar had jabbed him with his ring at Sotheby’s.

Calm down, he thought. Get control. Think this through.

Right, he thought. Even if he and Sienna had the freedom to leave this place, what were they going to do about it? Malone had counted on the Agency to solve the problem for them, but Laster had as much as admitted that the Agency didn’t have a solution. Bellasar would keep coming and coming, and a man with his resources would eventually find a lead. In the meantime, every shadow would make them flinch. Even on the most basic level, they needed the Agency to supply them with new identities and documentation. How were they going to keep on the move without new credit cards, driver’s licenses, and passports?

The rain pelted the window. It was gloomy enough outside that Malone could see his troubled reflection in the glass.

Someone knocked on his door. Turning, he saw it opening and noted that the hand coming into view didn’t have a key. He couldn’t help concluding that even though a combination of numbers had to be pressed on the pad next to the door to unlock it from the inside, the door could be unlocked from the outside merely by turning the knob.

Jeb appeared, looking sheepish, holding a six-pack of Budweiser in one hand and a bottle of Jack Daniel’s in the other. “Peace offering?”

“You really let me down.”

“The assignment was taken from my control.”

“Was it ever in your control?”

“I thought so. I was wrong. Can I come in?”

“Since when does anybody around here ask permission of the prisoners?”

“Since now.”

Malone exhaled and waved him forward.

“What would you like?” Jeb set the whiskey and the beer on the bureau.

“Some passports would be nice.”

Jeb frowned.

“A set of new IDs. Just to give me the illusion there’s a future.”

Jeb opened his mouth, closed it, thought a moment, and finally said, “I’ll see what I can do.”

“I sort of hoped they were already in the works.”

Jeb avoided the subject. “What would you like for dinner?”

“You’re the food director now?”

“Just trying to make you happy.”

“Next thing, you’ll be leaving chocolates on the bed.”

“Hey, this is a shitty deal, I admit. But it’s like what they say about a real prison: You can do easy time or hard time. Why don’t the two of us get loaded, eat a steak dinner, and watch the Lakers game tonight? Things could be worse.”

“… I want to see her.”

“I know, pal.”

“Take me to her.”

“I’m sorry. I really am. For what it’s worth, she’s been insisting to see you, too.”

Malone’s chest ached.

“That’s all she wants. Listen, if the decision was up to me…” Jeb twisted the cap off the liquor bottle. “But Laster’s determined to give her a reason to remember harder. He figures if she has everything she wants, why should she help us?”

“One day, he and I are going to have a long talk about this.”

The rain lanced harder against the window.

“Have you got any glasses?” Jeb asked.

“Maybe in the bathroom.”

Thunder rumbled.

“I’ll go look,” Jeb said.

The next rumble shook the building. The thickness of the window wasn’t enough to shut out a muffled scream.

Jeb froze on his way to the bathroom.

“That wasn’t thunder,” Malone said.