“You know I’m opposed to that,” Baggetto said. “I’m opposed to your leaving the Perec woman here as well. Torture never produces reliable results. There’s ample proof of that. All we want is the film, and once we have that—”

“I’m not risking any more damned leaks!” Roswell said. “That Kiel creature recognizing Fleming almost did us in.”

“Fleming?” I asked. “Magda Spirova’s witness name was ‘Fleming’? What, she saw herself as a spy, like Ian Fleming?”

“Alexander Fleming,” the colonel said stiffly. “She wanted to create something as memorable as discovering penicillin.”

“Weapons-grade plague is a universe away from penicillin,” I said.

“She started work on bioweapons hoping to find cures for them,” Baggetto said.

“That was her propaganda,” Pinsen snapped. “You fell for it, and it made you a questionable colleague.”

“If you don’t have a vaccine for your bug that you can give your own team, you’ve created a weapon that’s a nightmare,” Baggetto said. “I’ve been telling you that from the get-go, but you’re so intent on your patriot games that—”

“They’re not games. We are serious about getting this country back on the right track.”

“I am the only person in this room with field combat experience,” Baggetto said. “If you can’t pay attention to what I have to say—”

“I am not going to have my work jeopardized any further,” Roswell said, “and that’s final.”

“Roswell. Enough,” Baggetto said, but Roswell blew a short tweet on a whistle, and the room suddenly filled with men in black.

I spun around, sprinted down the hall. I was almost at the exit when my body seemed to catch fire. I tried to keep to my feet, but my legs convulsed and I fell to the floor, writhing. Black-clad arms scooped me up, as easily as if I were a bouquet of prairie grasses.

I thought I heard Baggetto protest, but my ears were ringing, the men were all shouting, I couldn’t sort one sound from another.

The man in black carried me down a ladder. Fifteen rungs, I counted, and then I was flung to the ground.

56
Snake Eyes

I was lying on concrete. It was cold but soothing to my burning skin. My legs and arms kept twitching, as if I were a frog someone was running an electric current through. Tased, my groggy mind thought. The men in black had tased me. I could feel the pulsing where the darts had struck. My arm muscles were still hard to control, but my fingers found the wires trailing from the barbs. Five of them. Three people must have fired at me.