“I don’t see any end tidal carbon dioxide, Danielle. Chest compressions need to be deeper and faster.”

“We’re almost closed, Bart. How’s she doing?”

“Horrible. Ready to defibrillate, Mary.”

“Pads on. What settings?”

“Two hundred joules. Everybody ready? I’m clear, everybody clear. Shock.”

Jennifer saw Becca’s body jolt. The monitor remained unchanged.

V. fib.

“Restart chest compressions,” the anesthesiologist called out. “Give her one milligram of epinephrine and continue compressions for two minutes.”

Jennifer knew there was no way the team was going to give up without a fight, especially with a teenager’s life at stake. Another twenty minutes would be conservative.

From where she stood, she could see Becca’s face. Her eyes had been taped shut through the entire case, but even with that and the breathing tube, and the compressions and the action swirling around her, Jennifer thought there was a serenity there.

She stood motionless as the violent compressions continued, punctuated by more drugs and shocks. Then finally, after what seemed an eternity, it was over. The anesthesiologist, clearly shaken, checked the clock, thanked the team, and stated the precise time.

Beneath her mask, Jennifer finally felt the flood of tears begin. Still, she stood there, unaware that she was rubbing at the odd rash between her fingers.

Chapter 6

CHAPTER 6

Should a person offer to plow a farmer’s field for no fee, the farmer would be a fool to plow it for himself.

—LANCASTER R. HILL, 100 Neighbors, SAWYER RIVER BOOKS, 1939, P. 24

“I’m afraid I’ve not progressed as far as I had hoped.”

Dr. Andrew Pollack’s voice came through the speakers with perfect clarity, not at all distorted this time. The latency from the last encryption program had made conversation almost inaudible. At least, Kazimi thought glumly, this was one thing going right.

“Just send me what you have,” he said.

“You’re going to be disappointed, Kaz.”

Kazimi hesitated. Three years into all this, and he still had not grown accustomed to being called by that name, even though he was—at least according to his driver’s license, passport, birth certificate, social security number, and those associated with him personally or online—the person called Ahmed Kazimi. Those perfect documents were not the product of some fly-by-night backroom forger, but came courtesy of the federal government of the United States of America. As for the Stanford microbiologist who had been born with another name, that man was simply missing—vanished one day into thin air, and presumed by the police, the university, and all those who knew him, to be dead, drowned while sailing in his small sloop.

“Lately, I’ve come to expect disappointments,” Kazimi replied finally.

“Well, at least we’re not dealing with a real crisis.”