Grady went to the open back door and worked the thumbturn a few times, extending and retracting the deadbolt. The lock was simple to operate. No degree in engineering was required.

He couldn’t remember for sure, but they probably had seen him use the thumbturn.

At the coffeemaker again, he poured ten cups of water into the reservoir, put the glass carafe on the warming plate, and twisted the brew switch.

Returning to the window, he saw the three pals chasing around the yard: bounding exuberantly this way and that, tumbling, rolling, up and running again.

“Maybe if you watch me do it at dinner tonight,” Grady murmured, “you can have coffee ready for me in the morning.”

Forty-four

Lamar Woolsey took an early-bird flight out of Las Vegas and landed in Denver in time for a late breakfast, which he did not get to order, let alone eat, because two men were waiting for him when he came off the enclosed jet bridge into the terminal. They were in the area from which, since September 2001, everyone except airport personnel and ticketed passengers was excluded.

The moment that he spotted them, Lamar knew they were waiting for him. They had a look with which he was familiar: fully ready but pretending weariness, vigilant but feigning indifference. One of them had a hands-off cell phone, shaped like an ocarina but hardly bigger than a peach pit, hooked over his right ear.

Out of courtesy, so they would feel that their plainclothes disguise was effective, Lamar looked away from them and continued walking until the one without the cell phone called his name. Then he halted, turned to them as they approached, and said, “Ah, you must be with the conference.”

The one with the cell phone said, “No, sir,” and with a gesture encouraged Lamar to step out of the flow of disembarking passengers.

Neither of them spoke the name of his agency, but when they flopped open their ID wallets, Lamar wasn’t surprised to see that they were with the Department of Homeland Security: Derek Booker, Vincent Palumbo.

“I assume I won’t be able to keep my commitment to speak at the conference.”

Encouraging Lamar to walk with them, Palumbo said, “No, sir, you won’t. The organizers have already been told you’ve got to withdraw from the program due to a sudden illness.”

“What illness might that be?” Lamar asked.

“It’s not been specified, sir. That’s up to you.”

“I’ll use my imagination. I’m quite imaginative. Maybe it’ll be a tropical parasite with outrageous symptoms.” Lamar carried only his laptop. “I’ve got a suitcase coming through on the luggage carousel.”

Booker said, “We don’t have time for that now, sir. Feldstein will bring it to the site no more than an hour after we’ve gotten you there.”

Lamar didn’t bother to ask them the location of the site. They wouldn’t tell him in public, lest they be overheard.

They escorted him to a locked service door where someone waiting on the farther side opened it in answer to Palumbo’s brisk knock.

Corridor, stairs down, corridor, corridor, exit door: On the concrete apron, a sedan waited for them. As Booker got in the front passenger seat, Lamar settled in back beside Palumbo. The waiting driver glanced back at Lamar and said, “Feldstein, sir.”

“I’ve got a terrible tropical parasite, Mr. Feldstein, but not to worry. You can’t be infected just by riding in a car with me.”

“That’s good to know, sir,” Feldstein said as he popped the hand brake and tramped the accelerator.

“Is the site in the city?” Lamar asked Palumbo.

“No, sir. We’re flying out from here.”

“To where?”

“I’m not at liberty to say.”

Palumbo’s apparent discretion must mean that the agent hadn’t been told the location. In Lamar’s experience, that was unusual.

“What’re we dealing with this time? Explosives, chemical, biological, nuclear …?

“Sorry, sir,” Palumbo replied, “but I’m really not at liberty to disclose anything.”

Extraordinary. The escorting agents always knew the nature of the threat. Usually they presented a briefing en route.

Two airliners waited on a taxiway to use the runway that was being held clear for Feldstein.

Following the centerline stripe, the young agent drove at such high speed, he seemed to think he was expected to achieve flight velocity.

The executive helicopter was parked at the extreme end of the runway, on the chevrons marking the overrun area. As Lamar Woolsey, Palumbo, and Booker got out of the sedan, the chopper’s rotors began to slice the air, casting scimitar shadows on the concrete.

The three men ducked under the blades, and the agents followed Lamar into the craft as Feldstein drove away.

Palumbo and Booker took the seats nearest the door, and Lamar made his way farther into the eight-passenger craft.

Another man was aboard, ensconced in one of the last two seats.

Lamar sat across the narrow aisle from Dr. Simon Northcott. “I’ve got a terribly vicious tropical parasite. What’s your excuse, Northcott?”

“Food poisoning.”

Belting in, Lamar said, “You lack imagination, my friend. As I’ve noted regarding other issues. Where are you coming from?”

“We took off from my hotel parking lot just minutes ago. I was looking forward to this conference.”

“Well, you never know,” said Lamar. “Maybe this time it’s not just a plot to poison millions. Maybe this time it’s the end of the world, and you wouldn’t want to miss that, would you?”

Northcott’s smile was indistinguishable from any other man’s grimace. He was a good enough fellow and incredibly intelligent, but his sense of humor had atrophied in the Paleozoic Era.

The whine of the engine escalated, and Lamar looked out the window as the pavement fell away.

“How does a bankrupt government,” Northcott said, “pay to have all these cars and helicopters and jets and field labs and swarms of mortician-faced agents standing by 24/7, coast to coast?”

“I’ve heard the secretary of the treasury has worked out a deal to sell the Chinese five Midwestern states, where the people are just too uncool, anyway.”

Northcott didn’t wince a smile, but stared at Lamar as if he might be serious. Crane-tall, hawk-faced, as lean as an anorexic stork, he hunched forward like a vulture on a tree limb. He really wasn’t an actively bad guy, and he truly was incredibly intelligent, but Lamar found him about as likeable as an attack of gout.

“What do they want with you this time?” Northcott asked. “Is it physics or maths?”

“You’re a geneticist and physiologist, so you probably wouldn’t be here if this had anything to do with explosives or chemicals. If they want me on a biological threat, my guess is it’s not physics or maths so much as it is chaos theory.”

If Northcott’s smile looked like a grimace, then his grimace was more like the expression of a man who found a live cockroach swimming in his soup at the very moment he broke a tooth on a ball bearing spooned from the same bowl.