“Laurel,” Roth said.

“I didn’t come here to watch you two measure dicks,” she said.

He threw up his hands. “Fine. You tell him.”

She handed the photo to Lance.

“That envelope was handed in to the consulate in Istanbul,” she said. “As you can see, it’s addressed to you.”

“All right,” Lance said, taking the photo from her.

“Any idea who would want to speak to you?” Roth said.

Lance shrugged.

Laurel showed him the next photo. The typed note.

“I will only speak to Lance Spector.”

“Please tell me there’s more than this?” Lance said.

“No idea who it’s from?” Roth said.

Lance looked at the envelope. “Do you?”

“Someone who knew you were in Delta Force,” Laurel said.

“I can see you didn’t hire her only for the looks.”

Laurel threw her hands up.

“Come on, Lance,” Roth said.

“I was kidding.”

“There’s no need for that.”

“I said I was sorry,” Lance said. “Man, who knew you two were so sensitive?”

“We need to make progress on this,” Roth said.

Laurel nodded. She couldn’t take another two years of being sidelined.

“What about the titanium case?” Laurel said, looking at Roth.

Roth nodded.

“There was a small titanium case in the envelope,” she said.

She had no idea what it contained but she assumed Roth had sent it to a lab. That had to be the reason they were there. The analysis had found something.

She turned to Roth. “Did we get a lab report?”

“Yes we did.”

Laurel and Lance waited.

“If I talk about this,” Roth said, “we’re veering into sensitive territory.”

“Fuck it then,” Lance said. “I don’t want to hear it.”

“I do,” Laurel said.

Roth shook his head. “Laurel, this is a waste of time.”

She flicked through the file and found the report. “The case contained a vial,” she said. “The vial contained a virus. Completely unknown. C-V-2 they’ve called it.”

There were some stats and she went through them.

“Virulence is off the chart,” she said. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”

“That’s lethality,” Roth said to Lance.

“I know what virulence is.”

“It’s not exactly the same as lethality,” Laurel said, “but drug resistance is off the chart too,” Laurel said, going down the list of antibiotics it had been tested against. “My God. It’s unstoppable.”

“Every single med they tested,” Roth said.

“What’s the estimated lethality?” Lance said.

“Without treatment?” Roth said. “Very high.”

“How high?”

“There’s no way of knowing.”

“And with treatment?”

“Weren’t you listening? There is no treatment.”

“This can’t be right.”

“It’s right.”

“What about virality?” Lance said.

Laurel flipped through the report. “The R0,” she said.

“R0 is the number of people one infected person can spread the virus to,” Roth said to Lance.

“Will you stop explaining each thing to me.”

“This thing is armageddon,” Laurel said.

“The R0 is 25,” Roth said.