Ricci hesitated. Tick-tick-tick. Decision time. Now thought had to reenter the process. And with thought came a backslide into the choking memories of Ontario, and his dash through that final passage with Nichols, deep in the hornet’s nest, desperate to find what he needed to save Gordian’s life, uncertain whether he’d even know how to recognize it, or the place where it would be stored. Ricci’s helmet gear had provided wireless audiovisual contact with Eric Oh, an epidemiologist who was coaching him from three time zones away in California, and who Ricci had been told might know if they were very lucky—

On his right, behind a thick plate-glass inset, Ricci sees a large room filled with equipment that seems to indicate he’s getting hot. Tanks, ducting, air feed, and intake pumps.

“Doc? You with me?” he says into his helmet mike.

“Yes. You’re looking at the microencapsulation lab. This can’t be far from where they’d keep the cure.”

“Right. Assuming there is one.”

Silence to that remark.

Ricci looks at the solid concrete wall ahead of him with a stitch of apprehension, hustles along at a trot. The problem is he’s running out of hallway. Three, four more office doors on either side, and that’s it. Dead end. If he doesn’t find what he needs here, it’s doubtful he can shift the hunt to another part of the facility without turning all his men into casualties. He can almost feel the weight of their lives on his shoulders.

“Ricci, wait, slow down!” Eric’s voice is loud, excited in his comlink’s earpiece. “Over on your left, that door!”

He stops, turns, scans the sign above it:

POLYMERASE ACTIVATORS/ANTIVIRALS

“Tom, listen—”

“You don’t have to translate,” Ricci says. “We’re going in.”

He quickly moves to the left of the door, waves Nichols to the opposite side, tries the knob. Locked. Stepping back, Ricci aims his weapon—it is a compact variable velocity rifle system subgun with adjustable lethal or nonlethal settings—at the spot below the knob, squeezes off a staccato burst, then kicks out at the door. It flings inward without resistance, the lock mechanism in fragments from his shots.

They scramble into the room, Ricci fanning his outthrust gun to the left, Nichols buttonhooking to the right of the doorway, looking sharp, his technique perfect.

The office is unoccupied, its lights off. Ricci finds the wall switch and they come on.

He is seconds from a decision that he will always wish he could unmake.