He was sitting now, light-headed and nauseous, with a terrible, dirt taste in his mouth and his pulse pummeling the inside of his eyes.

"A course it's Anacostia," the boy said. "What'd you think it was? Man, I thought you was dead for a while. I cut through this lot on the last half of my paper route. I seen some wild things at this time of day, but never a dead white guy all pressed against a fence."

"I'm not dead."

"Not now, you ain't. But how was I supposed to know?"

Gabe pawed at the filth grating in his eyes.

"What's your name?"

"Louis. What's yours?"

"Gabe. Louis, do you know what time it is?"

"About five. A little after, I guess. I ain't supposed to talk to strangers, you know. You drunk or what?"

"Good question," Gabe said. "I think the answer's 'or what.' "

He sighed deeply and remorsefully as more details of the attack by the Benning Street Bridge drifted into place. Almost certainly, Jim Ferendelli was dead—killed in the exact way that the president would be killed at the whim of whoever was holding the appropriate transmitter; killed by Lily Sexton and by two thugs who would have never found them if Dr. Gabe Singleton had been more cautious and vigilant and had taken the time to try to work out an explanation for an event—the assault on Kyle Blackthorn—that most certainly demanded one.

Now there was another question that needed an answer: Why wasn't Gabe dead, too?

From what he could remember, the ferocious psychedelic response he experienced to having the chemical time bomb in his head set off was not anything like the virtually instant cardiac death induced in Ferendelli. It was far closer to what Drew had probably been experiencing. One explanation was that, like the president, Ferendelli had been dosed a number of times, while Gabe had only been inoculated with the drug-carrying fullerenes during that one session. Other possibilities crossed his mind—higher chemical concentration; more variety of pharmaceuticals; different target organs in their brains; perhaps such sophisticated controls built into the fullerenes and the transmitters that different frequencies triggered the specific release of different drugs.

God damn them!

Gabe tried to haul himself to his feet, but a wave of dizziness and nausea drove him back onto the dirt. He pushed to his hands and knees again and then, without warning, threw up—a mixture of river water, bile, and bits of undigested food.

From Louis's reaction, it was clear he had seen worse.

"That's gross, you know," he said clinically. "My uncle Robbie throws up all the time. Momma says it's because he drinks too much."

"Louis, how far are we from the river?"

"Few blocks. Three maybe."

"And how far from your house?"

"It's just down the end of the street."

"Can you take me there?"