“I have a problem with that, Jean. Relations between us and Europe are”—he searches for a word—“not good.”

Just like Morgan. Of all the English terms he has to pick from—“tenuous,” “strained,” “problematic,” “tense,” “adverse,” “hostile,” “unpropitious”—Morgan chooses “not good.”

He continues, his eyes moving slightly up and to the left, a sure sign he’s creating a lie, or holding back, but I don’t think Morgan’s aware of the subconscious tic; most liars aren’t. “You understand, don’t you, Jean? I mean, we can’t just send a valuable product like this over to Europe. Not with the current climate.”

My coffee tastes more bitter with each sip. “What if you sent me? I could administer the serum and—”

“Ha!” The single syllable is more bark than word. “You know the travel rules,” he says, softening, but only slightly. “No way.”

How could I have forgotten? “All right, then. Lorenzo. He can travel.”

Morgan shakes his head, as if he’s about to explain a difficult mathematical construct to a child, a concept so far outside my capacity to understand that he thinks breaking it down would be useless. “He’s Italian, Jean. A European citizen.”

“He’s one of us,” I say.

“Not really.”

“So that’s it?”

He starts shuffling papers on his desk, Morgan’s classic this-meeting-is-now-over tell. “Sorry, Jean. Call me when the mice are ready, okay?”

“Sure.” I turn to leave his office. “By the way, where’s Lin?”

“No idea,” he says, and his eyes move up and to the left.

Chapter Fifty-five

FIFTY-FIVE

As I ride the elevator down to the basement, a series of horrible vignettes flashes through my mind.

Doctors in France, their brains intact in all but one place, are unable to process the instructions on a bottle of hand sanitizer, let alone talk to their patients, write prescriptions, perform surgery. German stockbrokers will happily tell their clients to Dig! instead of Buy, and Fork! instead of Sell. An airline pilot in Spain, charged with the safe delivery of two hundred passengers, interprets the warnings of an air traffic controller as a raunchy joke, and laughs as her craft dives into Mediterranean waters. And so on, and so on, until an entire continent is drowning in a languageless chaos, ripe to be taken over.

“You let me know if you need anything,” Sergeant Petroski says when the elevator reaches the first floor. He steps out, not looking back, and takes his post at the checkout point as five men file in through the main doors.

So. Lorenzo and I aren’t the only ones working today. Quelle fucking surprise.

I continue down to the basement, every second feeling like another step on a journey to hell. Inside the lab, Lorenzo is sitting before two cages of mice, studying paperwork.

“Group One,” he says quietly.