He was certain of it, though Drake only got a two-second glimpse of his face before he settled into a seat halfway up the train carriage. One didn’t forget a face one had first seen from behind a weapon pointed at one’s chest.

Perfect. With a bit of luck, he’d be able to search the bloke’s bag for the sample and information on the rest of the shipment. He hadn’t been sure they’d end up in the same carriage to start out, of course, but he’d been prepared to move through the others if necessary, once the train was moving, and search the freight carriages one by one. This would save him that trouble. He offered up a prayer that the false beard he’d affixed to his face would help conceal his identity.

Usually he could go about his missions without fear of being seen, but this was a different case. Jaeger could easily recognize him through his light disguise, and there was no telling what he might do then. Anonymity was required here.

His neck went hot at the thought of the bacilli sitting just feet away. From the research he’d done, he knew it was stable enough in its current form—it wouldn’t infect anyone here, not unless they ingested it or, even less likely, somehow inhaled the dust. But if by chance anyone did, if the sugar fell into human food stores instead of animal . . . The glanders wasn’t likely to infect people, but anthrax was a different story. Typical flu symptoms—fever, chills, shortness of breath, fatigue—could lead to high fever, shock, and rapid death if it were inhaled. If it were ingested, lesions in the mouth, throat, and digestive tract would cause debilitating pain, vomiting blood, and ultimately death as well.

A cruel thing to wish even on animals, who would similarly suffer from it. The bacteria originated in livestock, but Pasteur and his assistants had instituted vaccination of sheep and cattle against anthrax decades ago. Science had been doing what it ought to have been—trying to knock it out. Not make a weapon of it. Not until now.

Drake’s fingers wanted to tighten around the paper, but he kept them loose. He wouldn’t feel sorry for the donkeys and horses the Germans were trying to kill—he’d simply save them the horror, that was all. He’d get the bacilli, he’d turn the sample over to Thoroton to ship to Hall for analysis, he and the rest of the team would reroute the larger quantities to wherever his superiors had decided they should go, and he’d move on to the next assignment.