David Dun - Unacceptable Risk

For a few minutes Jill listened while Sam tried to tell her how he felt about Anna lying unconscious in the hospital. For some reason it was hard for him to speak the right words, and yet he knew she understood.

"I wish I were there to hold your hand," she said. There were a few moments of silence. Harry put his chin on his paws and looked disconsolate.

"You know the way you're leaning back with those oysters, you're going to spill ketchup on your shirt."

"Have you ever noticed how some people can't just wear their ketchup stain-even ketchup lovers like me. They have to cover it with a tie, or hold their hand on their stomach, or take the shirt off and use towels and water. In the extreme cases they have to leave the office and get a new shirt. As long as that ketchup is there, they can't stop thinking about it. The ketchup actually rules their life."

Jill said nothing for a moment.

"Grieving is good, Sam. It's not like a ketchup stain, so don't even think about comparing them."

"I was talking about hypocritical ketchup lovers."

"And I was talking about you."

Sam thought about that. For him, was it Gaudet that was the ketchup stain? Or was it something inside? Was it his self-doubt? Was it that he had Indian blood? Or maybe it was his anonymous life. One thing he believed: nothing could be normal or right until he got Gaudet. Not grieving, not life. Maybe he could choose a public life after Gaudet. Maybe he would have more confidence that he was good enough for Anna. Now he didn't know.

He thought about what his mother had said about Grandfather, about the focusing of his life force. Could a man focus his life on catching another man and have a life worth living? It was a question that he shoved out of his mind almost as fast as it came. Some things were necessary, he told himself.

"You don't think you should tell Grady and Michael you're really in New York."

"It worked last time."

"Yeah, Grady was almost strangled."

"I've gotta get this man that is really not a man. He is more devil than man."

"I guess if we're going to stop him, we better get to work."

"Title of the file in Gaudet's mainframe was interesting," Jill said. " 'Alpha Worm.' Some kind of joke."

"Uh-huh."

"You're tired."

"Not that tired. How is Figgy doing?"

"Great. If you like would-be traitors. He has a lot of contacts and he's working them. I guess we just ignore that he seems to have had a meeting with our mortal enemy and isn't mentioning it. He has gotten information about Grace from the French, who are suddenly discovering that they knew things they supposedly didn't know."

"Do you think he would betray the United States for some renegade French spooks?"

"What do you think, Sam?"

"I think we got serious trouble that I don't understand. We can't trust Figgy with anything we don't want Gaudet to know until we prove otherwise. It is possible to meet with your enemy without embracing him. We can't forget that. I would like to think that Figgy and the French are trying to trap him."

"But you don't believe it."

"Unfortunately, I don't."

"You know I was talking to our Harvard guys. They just keep saying that this would be an unimaginable medical breakthrough if Grace had a way of altering the immune sys tem so that it would accept foreign cells. All of the diseases in which our bodies reject good cells could be cured. Growing and implanting replacement organs would be a breeze. We'd have pig farms growing human parts. Gene repair would be vastly simplified. You have to hear it for yourself. They make it sound like the Second Coming."

"It would be worth a fortune."

"And?"

"Maybe that's becoming bigger than whatever Gaudet is doing."

"Bigger to whom?"

"Everybody. All the governments. Hell of a thought. What if every government out there wanted it?"

"To own the discovery."

"Yeah. It would be an unimaginable thicket. But we better stop looking for ghosts and get Grogg in here."

"Grogg got into Northern Lights' computer. He found a Gaudet-related phone number in a Frank Grey's contacts list. He is one of the two that got the vector."

"So he was a threat to Gaudet? Maybe a falling-out?"

"Frank Grey also had the number of a man in the SDECE by the name of Jean Baptiste Sourriaux, and he is the same man that Gaudet wrote. And he was in Figgy's computer. And, of course, Baptiste was in the jet with Figgy."

"It's a small world."

"It gets smaller. Grey had a number in his directory that turns out to be the phone of Claudia Roche. But it was listed as Chaperone."

"It would not be a great hurdle to assume that Claudia Roche is the way to Georges Raval. She lives in Manhattan and is related to Chloe Raval in France, who claims that Georges Raval is her brother's son. Big Brain drew the correlation or we wouldn't know any of this. Could be some thing, could be nothing. Apparently, Chaperone was the name that Frank Grey at Northern Lights used for whatever he associated with Raval."

"It makes sense. Raval is the only ex-Grace scientist we haven't been able to account for."

"Fascinating. Gaudet kills Grey, and others at Northern Lights, wants Bowden, and is meeting with the French. Some body almost steals the journals and they especially want the 1998 journal. Benoit wants a forgery of the '98 journal. Gaudet is doing something called Cordyceps; he's probably building a computer virus; and he's using the vector, but he doesn't seem to have Chaperone. I'm guessing that Gaudet is going to be interested in Chaperone and in Georges Raval. The action seems centered here in New York. Now, if only Benoit Moreau would come to me."

"You've done very good work," Gaudet said to the name less short man who stood beside him on the street across from the entrance to Globe Publishing. Before answering, the man took a deep drag on his cigarette, then adjusted his hat. This business of waiting for words between puffs was an irritation, but Gaudet put up with it.

"How did you know he was alive?"

"Hard to keep a famous man's death a secret. On the other hand, it's easy to make him disappear and spread rumors."

"What are you gonna do?"

"That's my business. Find out where he's staying."

"Must be awful important for a Frenchman to be hanging around New York."

"If you enjoy the feeling of the earth under your feet, you'll quit thinking about me and keep on thinking about the assignment."

They had it planned so there was plenty of time to stop at the hospital and see Anna before arriving at the publishing house. Michael stood back by the door when Grady went to Anna's side and when she talked with Anna's mother. With out fail, there were tears in her eyes when she left, and Michael would let time pass before saying anything. He hoped she would be okay with the publisher meeting, but he noticed that as soon as they got out into the open air, she seemed to transform herself and to put the sadness in a corner of her mind.

The publishing house was somewhat overpowering, even in the lobby. It was brass and glass and wasn't like anything Michael could recall except on occasional trips to Rio. There was art on the walls that looked like splashy paint accidents. His father had told him about such art but had been astounded that the buying public opened their wallets and received it into their workplaces and even their homes. Childhood mem ories were of museums filled with paintings of comprehensible images.

There was a tentative aspect to his gait because of his injuries. On the phone he had warned his editor of his physical condition, claiming that there had been an unfortunate run-in with unsavory characters in the jungle. To a publisher, he knew, such a story had substantial juice and there would be an attentive audience for the lunchtime tale. He would explain Grady as a member of a scientific expedition that happened by to rescue him, and her enthusiasm as a reader. That along with the simple observation of her person and her wit would complete the explanation. All of the bodyguards save Yodo would remain downstairs and he would explain Yodo as his newfound jungle companion and assistant. He was comforted by the fact that, try as they might, they wouldn't get more than one or two sentences out of Yodo.