“Not that one either,” he laughed.

Cohen asked, “What do you plan to do now, Graham?”

“I’m flying back to Vancouver in the morning. Then?” Kilburn shrugged. “Catch up with my latest family crisis. Clean up the mess that my practice must be in. Have a strip torn off me by Louise.” He broke into a grin. “Come to think of it, it’ll be like any other week.” Graham knew there would be one difference, but he didn’t share it with the others. The past weeks had given him a new appreciation of life’s fragility. He was determined not to continue living with regret. He would try his best to mend his relationship with Michelle.

Flushing slightly, Kilburn asked the other two of their plans.

They shared a shy smile. With Cohen’s functional right hand, he reached over and clasped her left hand. “We have a little sick time on our hands,” Cohen said.

Lopez squeezed Cohen’s fingers. “We’re planning a trip,” she said.

“Maybe the Oregon coast,” suggested Cohen.

“Or maybe Machu Picchu?” Lopez leaned over and kissed Cohen on the lips.

Cohen beamed. “Okay, Peru it is.”

Kilburn laughed. “I can just see you two in ten years.”

Lopez cocked her head. “In Portland or Seattle?” she asked.

“Don’t know that part.” Kilburn winked at her. “But I see a brood of little Lopez-Cohens following you around. Brilliant, tireless, and headstrong, every last one of them!”

Lopez chuckled, but Kilburn thought he noticed a slight blush in her cheeks.

Cohen smiled warmly at Lopez. “First, we’ve got to survive Peru.”

Kilburn glanced at the two of them and appreciated that, despite the harrowing circumstances of their meeting, he’d made a pair of lifelong friends. And with a hint of pride, he realized they had helped to stem the spread of a dangerous pathogen and contain its malicious source. That didn’t bring back Thomas Mallek, Parminder Singh, Viktor Leschuk, Ellen Horton, or any of the others, but it made their deaths seem a little less meaningless.

Kilburn’s nagging guilt dissipated. He thought of Michelle again. He was ready to move forward with his life too.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I am so grateful for the feedback and encouragement of my loyal friends and family who read Resistance when it wasn’t much more than a bulky stack of 8 x 11 pages. They include: Duncan Miller, Geoff Lyster, Brooke Wade, Alisa Weyman, Dave Allard, Peter Allard, Lisa and Rob King, Deedee and Kirk Hollohan, Jeff Jacobs and Deborah Rath, Dan Rath, Lissy Jarvik, Sonja Rath, John Ward, Maria Hugi, Jeremy Etherington, Janet Mutch, Susan Rhodes, Janine Mutch, Shannon Taylor and Lome Folich, Alec and Theresa Walton, Sue Sutherland, Peter Olson, Steve Linville, and Glen Clark.