I moved as silently as my boots would allow, up to the windows and through a crack in the paint. I could see a chair arm, the corner of a table, a man’s hand chopping up and down as he made a serious point, but not the whole picture. I walked over to the entrance. The padlock had been removed; the door opened easily, silently, hinges and doorframe well oiled and planed.

As soon as I was inside, I heard their voices coming from the end of the hall. They were arguing. Baggetto was speaking, but I couldn’t make out the words.

I walked down the hall, through the open door to the team meeting.

“I don’t care what Kiel wants—”

Bram Roswell stopped in midsentence. Baggetto and AKA Pinsen were with him; all three stared at me as if I were an octopus who’d landed on a Ferris wheel.

“We wondered where you were, Ms. Warshawski,” the colonel said. “You come and go, and sometimes you’re very public about it and sometimes not so much so.”

“It’s always flattering to be missed,” I said. “I wondered how sophisticated your surveillance might be. How did the peanut butter affect your remote mike?”

“Peanut butter!” the colonel said. “Was that the sound like sawing wood?”

I grinned, a savage rictus. “That was my dog licking it off. I hope she shorted the circuits. This seems like an uncomfortable place to meet, when you have the Oregon Trail Hotel close by. Or are you trying to restart the Minuteman program? The best place to do that would certainly be where a missile silo already exists.”

“What we’re trying to do is none of your business,” Roswell said.

“That depends, of course, on what it is,” I replied. “If this is a weekly poker game and you’re hiding your winnings from your spouses or Uncle Sam, you’re right—nothing to do with me. On the other hand, if you’re releasing Y. pestis into the air and soil, it’s the business of everyone in this county. In the whole country, really.”

“How do you know about Y. pestis?” Pinsen demanded.

“Oh, please. It’s not a secret. Dr. Hitchcock is at the Cleveland Clinic, fighting for his life. It’s not what killed Dr. Roque, but he was infected—one of you heroes stabbed him before the pneumonia became full-blown.”

The trio were momentarily quiet, and then Roswell said to Pinsen, “You were right about her—she’s much too nosy. Better leave her here.”

“I wanted to do that all along,” Pinsen said, “but you thought she’d lead you to the actress and her sidekick.”

“Have you found them?” Colonel Baggetto asked me.