Her mouth went dry. She felt her heart thud against her rib cage. The sound of Warmack’s words faded into the back of her consciousness. If the lab was right, the world had just been introduced to a previously unseen pathogen.

A brand new and deadly superbug.

Don’t get ahead of yourself, Lina, she thought. She took a deep breath and looked up to see Warmack eyeing her. From his furrowed brow, Lopez knew he had noticed her concern.

Aware of the eyes in the auditorium focusing on her, Lopez leaned closer to Warmack and whispered in his ear: “David, look at this result.” With the smartphone trembling slightly in her hand, she held it up for him to read.

He scanned it in a flash. When he looked up at her, his gray eyes showed uncharacteristic fear. He said very quietly: “Cat, this is a problem.”

5 - Portland, Oregon

5

Portland, Oregon

The man whose license identified him as Dennis Lyndon Tyler was itching to get out of Portland. He had come to loathe the city in the same way he had Seattle and Vancouver during his stays there. Even his memories of San Francisco, where he had once lived for a year, were clouded by the miserable assignment. During his nocturnal existence peddling unknown wares along the West Coast, Tyler had seen none of the famed beauty or charm of those cities. All he experienced were their seedy underbellies; human garbage seething in a live can.

Walking out of the alley, he realized with considerable satisfaction that the packet he had just unloaded on the cadaverous transvestite—who would likely not live to see the week’s end—was the last one he needed to dispense. Tyler longed to return to his hotel and climb into the shower. He intended to spend hours under the its soapy, cleansing water, scrubbing away every infinitesimal trace of the last month from his body. Then he would pack up his disguise and sink it to the bottom of the Willamette River.

He was brought back to the moment when two men suddenly stepped out from behind either side of his SUV. Despite dressing similarly in black nylon windbreakers, black jeans, and tinted glasses, the two could not have looked less alike. The African American with the shaved head stood at least six-five and Tyler guessed that he weighed more than 300 pounds. His white companion was a head shorter and probably half as heavy. Tyler knew instantly that the littler man in the baseball cap was in charge, his companion the muscle. Tyler stifled a sigh. He’d seen the same stereotypical pairing so many times before.

The men sauntered up until they stood a couple of feet from Tyler, their aftershave overpowering his own. The small man folded his arms across his chest and cocked his head. “The fuck you doing, mister?” He sneered.

Tyler shrugged in feigned confusion. He pointed his key at his SUV. “Going to my car.”