Kiss Me While I sleep (27 page)

By the fifth ring, Swain was beginning to doubt anyone was going to answer. But on the sixth one, there was some fumbling and a sleep-fogged voice said, “Yeah, hello.”

“Micah, this is Lucas Swain.”

“Well, son of a bitch.” There was the sound of a huge yawn. “Haven’t heard from you in a coon’s age. Wish I wasn’t hearing from you right now, either. Do you know what fucking time it is?”

Swain looked at his watch. “Let’s see; it’s nine am here, so that would make it… three am, right?”

“Bastard.” That was said around another yawn. “Okay, why’d you wake me up? This had better be good.”

“I don’t know if it is or not.” Swain cradled the phone between his jaw and shoulder as he changed gears. “What do you know about avian influenza?”

“Bird flu? You’re shittin‘ me, right?”

“Nope, I’m serious as a heart attack. Is bird flu dangerous?”

“Not to wild fowl, but it is to domesticated birds. Remember seeing on the news several years back… 1997, I think… where there was an outbreak of bird flu in Hong Kong and they killed almost two million chickens to get rid of it?”

“Television was kind of hard to come by where I was. So it kills birds?”

“Yeah. Not a hundred percent of them, but enough. The problem is, sometimes the virus mutates and is transmitted from birds to humans.”

“Is that more dangerous than regular flu?”

“Way more. If it’s a virus the human body hasn’t seen before, then there’s no immune system resistance to it and you get sick as hell. Then you either die or you don’t”

“That’s comforting.”

“We’ve been lucky so far. We’ve had a few mutations that allow bird-to-human infection, but none of the avian influenza viruses have made the magic leap that allows for human-to-human transmission. Like I said, so far. We’re way overdue for a recombinant virus to hit us hard, but the avian flu that’s been hitting Hong Kong doesn’t look like a recombinant; it looks like a true avian virus. But it’s infecting people, too. If it mutates that little bit needed for human-to-human infection, then we’re in big trouble, because we’d have even less resistance to it than we would have to a recombinant virus that we’d seen at least a part of before.”

“What about vaccines for it?” Swain drove around a curve and there was Lily’s apartment building, but she wasn’t standing on the street with all her worldly goods around her, so he drove past it to make another convoluted loop.

“We wouldn’t have one. New viruses hit hard and fast; vaccines take months to test, to get them out to the general populace. By the time we could get an effective vaccine against an avian virus, a lot of people will have died. It’s even harder to get one for avian influenza than it is for regular influenza viruses, because vaccines are cultured in eggs and-guess what-avian influenza will kill the eggs.”

“Is this something the CDC is really worried about?”

“You’re kidding, right? Flu kills a hell of a lot more people than the exotics that get all the sexy press, like the hemorrhagic fevers.”

“So if some lab or something developed the vaccine ahead of time, then let the virus loose, they could make some serious money?”

“Hey, wait a minute.” All sleepiness had fled Micah’s tone. “Swain, are you telling me what I think you’re telling me? That’s a possible scenario?”

“I’ve just heard about it; I haven’t checked it out yet I don’t know if there’s anything to it I wanted to see if it’s feasible first“

“Feasible? It’s brilliant, but it’s a fucking nightmare. We’ve dodged the bullet the past few years, only regular influenza viruses have made the rounds, but we’re holding our breaths and trying to get a reliable method of producing the vaccine before one of these damn bugs turns on us. Worldwide, even with antiviral drugs and medications to treat the complications, millions would die.”

“Would it hit kids hardest?”

“Sure. Rids don’t have the fully-developed immune system adults have. They haven’t been exposed to as many bugs.”

“Thanks, Micah, that’s what I needed to know.” It wasn’t what he’d wanted to hear, but at least now he knew what he was dealing with.

“Don’t hang up! Swain, is something like that going on? You have to tell me, man, you can’t let us get caught flat-footed by something like this.”

“I won’t.” He hoped; he’d have to take some fail-safe precautions. “It’s just a rumor, nothing concrete. Flu season has already started, hasn’t it?”

“Yeah, it’s looking like a normal season so far. But if you find out there’s some bastard looking to make a fortune with a virus like this, we need to know.”

“You’ll be the first,” Swain lied. “I’ll call you next week and let you know what’s going on, good or bad.” He
would
call, but Micah probably wouldn’t be the first.

“Even at three fucking am,” Micah groused.

“You got it Thanks, pal.”

Swain disconnected, then dropped the phone in his pocket. Damn. Okay, so this scheme Lily’s caller had told her about was not only feasible, but a real problem. Swain tried to think of alternate means of handling it. He couldn’t call Langley because Frank was out of commission, there was a fucking mole in place who was feeding information to Rodrigo Nervi, and he had no idea whom he could trust If Frank was there… well, one phone call and the whole damn laboratory complex would be toast tomorrow morning, but Frank wasn’t there, so Swain had to turn it into toast himself. Somehow.

He could have given Micah the particulars, but what could the CDC do? Nothing more than alert the World Health Organization. Even if the WHO had the place raided without someone in the local police structure tipping off Nervi first, yeah, they’d find the virus, but the Nervi lab was working on a vaccine
for
the virus, so of course the virus would have to be there for testing, et cetera. It was a neat scheme, logically explaining away the smoking gun. He had to admire it.

He made it back to the apartment building, and this time Lily was there, carrying two carpet bags and with a familiar-looking tote hanging on her shoulder. He grinned as he looked fondly at the tote bag. Without it, he might never have found her.

He got out to stow the bags for her. They were on the heavy side, and he noticed she was a little breathless, which reminded him she’d said the poison had done some damage to a heart valve. He tended not to remember that, because she was such a capable person, but the fact was that only about two weeks had passed since she’d killed Salvatore Nervi and almost died herself. Even if the damage to her heart was minimal, there was no way she could have fully recovered her strength in such a short length of time.

He studied her as he opened the car door for her. Her lips weren’t blue, and her unpainted fingernails were pink. She was getting enough oxygen. She’d been rushing around, up and down three flights of stairs, so of course she was breathless. He would be, too. Relieved, he stopped her as she was about to get into the car. She looked up with a questioning expression, and he kissed her.

Her mouth was soft, and she leaned into him with such easy acceptance that his heartbeat kicked into a gallop. The street was no place for how he wanted to kiss her, however, so he contented himself with that brief taste. She smiled, one of those completely feminine smiles that left a man feeling drunk and confused and happy all at the same time, then slid into the seat and pulled the car door shut.

“Shit,” he said as he got in the driver’s seat. “I’m probably gonna have to dump this car.”

“Because I could have been seen getting into it?”

“Yeah. Though we probably look like a couple going away on vacation, it’s better not to take the chance.
Now
what will I get?”

“Maybe something a little less noticeable, like a red Lamborghini?” That wasn’t fair, since the Megane Renault wasn’t in any way in the same class with a Lamborghini, but it was still a noticeable car.

He chuckled at the dig. “So I like good cars. Sue me.”

“Did you get in touch with your friend in the States?”

“Yeah, but he was bitchy about the time difference. The bad news is, not only is this virus thing feasible, it’s the CDC’s worst nightmare.”

“What’s the good news?”

“There isn’t any. Except Nervi isn’t going to release the virus until the vaccine is available, because of course he wants to be the first one innoculated, right? And it takes months to develop a vaccine. Since your friends did some damage to the program in August and presumably the mad doctor had to start over, I think we’re safe in thinking they aren’t going to release the virus during this flu season. They’ll wait until next year.”

She blew out a relieved breath. “That makes sense to me.” She hesitated. “I’ve been thinking. I didn’t know about the virus before, but now… This isn’t something we have to do alone. Even though I’m not in good standing with the CIA right now, I could still use a pay phone and call my former contact there, let him know what’s going on. They could handle something on this magnitude much better than just the two of us can.”

Swain almost jumped out of his skin. “For God’s sake, don’t do that!” Her reasoning was sound, but she didn’t know about the mole and he couldn’t tell her without blowing the whistle on himself.

“Why not?” Her tone was more curious than anything else, but he could feel that pale blue gaze boring into him like lasers. She could cut steel with that look.

He didn’t have a good reason on the tip of his tongue, and for a split second he thought the whole thing was going to blow up in his face, but then he had a flash of genius. He could pretty much tell her everything essential, without giving anything away. It was all in how he phrased it. “You know Nervi has contacts and influence there.”

“He’s an asset, an informer, but-”

“But he’s also a very wealthy man. What are the odds someone there is on his payroll?” It was a simple explanation, and a true one. He was just leaving out a few details.

She turned back in her seat and scowled. “It’s good odds. Salvatore was thorough, and Rodrigo is even more so. So we don’t dare go to anyone, do we?”

“No one I’ve been able to think of, that he wouldn’t have someone there on his payroll. Not the French police, not Interpol…” He let his voice trail off and shrugged. “I guess we have to save the world ourselves.”

“I don’t want to save the world,” she said grumpily. “I like things on a smaller scale. I want it to be
personal,”

He had to laugh, because he knew what she meant. As much as she’d wanted to bring down the Nervi organization before, now they
had
to do it.

The job was much tougher than he’d imagined at the beginning. With a virus like that having to be contained, the security would be on a par with that at the CDC in Atlanta. Getting in would require more than just having information about the security system; they would need inside help. Just how they got that help was going to be a bitch.

“We may have to take the chance that the guy who called you is on the up and up,” he said. “Otherwise, we’re screwed.”

“I was thinking the same thing,” she said, surprising him. Sometimes it was scary the way their brains seemed to work the same way and at the same pace. “The security in place because of the virus will be layered, and the virus itself kept in strict quarantine. We need someone inside.”

“You’ll have to meet with him. That’s the only way we can know it isn’t Rodrigo Nervi. If it is Rodrigo, he’ll jump at the chance to have you come to him. He doesn’t know about me-well, he might have an idea after the shoot-out the other day, but he doesn’t know what I look like or anything-so I can watch your back.”

She gave a grim smile. “If it
is
Rodrigo, he’ll have so many men watching that you won’t be able to do a thing about it But I agree, that’s the only way. I’ll have to do it. But if it’s Rodrigo and they grab me, do me a favor and kill me. Don’t let them take me alive, because I expect Rodrigo will want to have some fun and games with me before he kills me. I’d just as soon skip that part”

Swain’s stomach knotted at the thought of Nervi getting his hands on her. There were hard decisions he had to make, but that wasn’t one of them. “I won’t let that happen,” he said quietly.

“Thanks.” Her smile turned a little brighter, as if he’d given her a gift, and his stomach knotted even tighter.

Neither of them had eaten yet that morning, so with Lily’s sunglasses and hat in place they stopped at a sidewalk cafe and had brioches and coffee. He watched her eat, his heart thudding as he wondered if this was the last day he’d have with her. He’d thought he could put if off longer, but circumstances were piling up on them. If her mystery caller was Rodrigo Nervi, there was no way they could know until the meeting, and then it would be too late.

He wished there was some other way they could do it, but there wasn’t. The meeting had to take place. She had to accept the guy’s proposal when he called tomorrow, set up a meeting, and be there. Then… the caller would either turn out to be Nervi, or someone else. God, he prayed it was someone else. He wanted more than one more day with her. He wanted more than one night.

He himself had gone into every job knowing it might be his last, that when you worked with violent people sometimes the violence turned on you. Lily was the same; she had put herself in the front lines and accepted the odds. That didn’t make it any easier, knowing she was there by choice.