A bolt of electricity shot through Valerie. Words could sometimes do that to her; they could have a visceral effect on her being. “Paulus,” she said softly, gently, “you said ‘he,’ not ‘they.’”

“Did I?”

There was no point in answering, she suspected. He knew very well what he’d said. This was a man who used language as carefully and precisely as he moved through life itself.

“There’s a particular subject you’re worried about.” She was making a statement, not asking a question.

He nodded. Then he raised his head. His eyes were enlarged, liquid with unshed tears. “I was forced to take a step that was…”

“Was what, Paulus?”

“Unscientific. Unsound.”

“Someone made you do this?”

He nodded. “Luther St. Vincent.”

Something hard and unyielding contracted in the pit of her stomach, and now she was angry. “Why didn’t you tell me this before?”

He visibly shrank from her. “I was afraid. What he had me do is unethical, at the least. At worst, it could cause a man his life. What would you think of me if I confessed?”

“The only way I would think less of you is if you lied to me.”

“I don’t lie, Valerie.”

She smiled. “I know, Paulus. But you did withhold this information.”

“But not for too long.” His answering smile was water-weak. “I’m sorry.”

Her smile brightened. Now was the time to make him into a hero. “What’s past is past. We go on from here, and now you’re the only person who can help this subject who you say may be in mortal danger.” She lowered her voice to reinforce the urgency of her question. “Who, Paulus? Who is the subject?”

*   *   *

“Orteño.”

Preach was listening carefully to every word Valerie said, though he had no reason to. Crow had already told him.

“Felix Orteño,” she said. “St. Vincent tried to keep the subject’s real identity secret, but Paulus, already becoming worried about Luther’s objectives, found out.”

“A field trial, is it?” Preach barked a laugh. “My, but Luther is racing toward his own death.”

“Aren’t we all?”

“Some more quickly than others,” he said quoting Crow, though, of course, Valerie didn’t know that. Silence for a beat. “This news has to make its way to Gregory Whitman, and at once. Who would be best suited to do that?”

“Cutler,” she told him. “I know just how to feed it to him, too: as caff scuttlebutt.”

“Go forth,” Preach said, proud of her, “and multiply.”

Severing the connection, he opened the screen door, went out on the porch, where the rocking chair he had made himself a lifetime ago awaited him. He sat, his knees creaking, an odd thing, to be sure. He waited for Crow to come to him; it always did, in its own time and in its own way.