He pushed off from the rail and paced across the deck to the French doors, one of which was still open. He put his hands on each side of the doorway and leaned into the space between, becoming a silhouette against the glow of the buttons on the roll-top desk.

“Weaponizing the disease was my idea. Ten years ago. I called the project Rigel, and I got approval to go ahead with the work, here in Ashland. I’m ashamed now of what I did back then—what I was back then—but at the time, I felt it was my job. I was a bio-warfare researcher. I began Rigel with a sample from one of the recent minor outbreaks in Central America. My goal was to make the disease controllable … make it something we could store in canisters and deliver in a mist form, like tear-gas or pepper-spray. Take the birds and the mosquitos right out of the equation. Even the parasite itself could be taken out of the equation, if we could synthesize the toxin it produces—the poison it secretes inside your brain when it infects you. If we could create that chemical all by itself, then we would have the disease in its purest form, capable of infecting people almost instantly. The idea was that you’d position it upwind of enemy troops and let it loose on them. You’d infect as many of them as possible, and then they’d start killing the rest.”

Sam glanced at Dani. In the soft light he could just make out the revulsion in her eyes.

Across the deck, Pierce drew himself back from the doorway. He turned to face the two of them.

“Did it work?” Sam asked.

Pierce nodded. “Perfectly. It never saw combat, but we tested it on primates—and a few human volunteers.”

“You killed people?” Dani asked.

“No, no. That’s the strange part. Neocortical malaria doesn’t actually kill its victims—although in the past they’ve almost always gotten killed anyway, once they started attacking villages. But if they happen to live long enough, they overcome the infection and return to normal. With the natural form of the disease, that took about ten days. With my weaponized version, the timing was different. When you’re exposed to the mist, you black out within seconds, stay unconscious for five minutes or so, and then you wake up fully symptomatic—a monster. But because it’s just the chemical, without the actual parasite inside you to keep producing the stuff, the body recovers pretty quickly. Three or four hours and you’re clearheaded again, like sobering up after too many drinks. It’s not very long, but in a combat zone, where you’re using it to turn enemy soldiers against each other … it would be plenty of time. Enough time for the afflicted to do serious damage.”

“The afflicted?” Sam asked.