Eph looked back to Setrakian, standing near the door. Then at Barnes. He couldn’t come up with anything to say.

“Ephraim, I am shutting Canary down. As of this moment.”

“What?” said Eph, coming around. “Wait, Everett—”

Eph moved fast, toward Barnes. The other cops started toward him as though he was dangerous, their reaction stopping Eph, alarming him even more.

“Dr. Goodweather, you have to come with us,” said the FBI agent. “All of you…hey!”

Eph turned. Setrakian was gone.

The agent sent two cops out to get him.

Eph looked back toward Barnes. “Everett. You know me. You know who I am. Listen to what I am about to tell you. There is a plague spreading throughout this city—a scourge unlike anything we’ve ever seen.”

The FBI agent said, “Dr. Goodweather, we want to know what you injected into Jim Kent.”

“What I…what?”

Barnes said, “Ephraim, I have made a deal with them. They will spare Nora if you agree to cooperate. Spare her the scandal of arrest and preserve her professional reputation. I know that you two…are close.”

“And how exactly do you know that?” Eph looked around at his persecutors, moving past bewilderment and into anger. “This is bullshit, Everett.”

“You are on video attacking and murdering a patient, Ephraim. You have been reporting fantastic test results, unexplained by any rational measurement, unsubstantiated and most likely doctor-manipulated. Would I be here if I had a choice? If you had a choice?”

Eph turned to Nora. She would be spared. She could perhaps fight on.

Barnes was right. For the moment at least, in a room full of lawmen, he had no choice.

“Don’t let this slow you down,” Eph told Nora. “You may be the only one left who knows what’s really happening.”

Nora shook her head. She turned to Barnes. “Sir, there is a conspiracy here, whether you are willingly a part of it or not—”

“Please, Dr. Martinez,” said Barnes. “Don’t embarrass yourself any further.”

The other agent packed up Eph’s and Nora’s laptops. They started walking Eph down the stairs.

At the second-floor hallway, they met the two cops who had gone after Setrakian. They were standing side by side, almost back to back. Handcuffed together.

Setrakian appeared behind the group with his sword drawn. He held its point at the lead FBI agent’s neck. There was a smaller dagger in his other hand, also fashioned of silver. He held that one near Director Barnes’s throat.

The old professor said, “You gentlemen are pawns in a scheme well beyond your comprehension. Doctor, take this dagger.”

Eph took the weapon’s handle, holding the point at his boss’s throat.

Barnes said, breathlessly, “Good Christ, Ephraim. Have you lost your mind?”