Inside, seated on the only furnishing in the room other than a lidless toilet, are three people.

I think of the great apes, the hominoids. Gorillas and orangutans, bonobos and chimpanzees. And, of course, humans.

The human on the left speaks my name, my old name, a name I haven’t heard for twenty years. By the second syllable in “Jeanie,” a jolt of pain knocks her back into the steel wall. The sickening thud echoes in the room.

It sounds like the muffled shot of a gun.

Chapter Sixty-six

SIXTY-SIX

I lunge forward on unsteady feet, but Lorenzo catches me by the arm. His grip is firm, almost bruising.

“No,” he says. “If she speaks again, the current will—”

He’s stronger than I am, but I break away, flinging myself at the woman on the bench, whose body sags like a lifeless doll under the harsh overhead lights. She’s not how I remember her, not in low-riding jeans and a crazily printed paisley blouse, not smiling from under a fringe of color-of-the-week hair while she brewed herbal tea in a crappy Georgetown apartment and cursed at the Ikea table instructions that defied minds with multiple degrees. She’s in a gray tunic that matches her hair and the color of her skin, except for the palms of her hands, which have been rubbed as raw as fresh meat from a year of labor that would make even the most stalwart farmer turn his back on the land and find a job pushing paper across a desk. She’s wearing a single black band on her left wrist where a charm bracelet of Chinese horoscope animals used to be.

“Jacko,” I say, placing one hand over her chapped lips. “Jacko, don’t say anything else. Don’t let them make it worse for you.”

Jackie Juarez, once the woman who I thought would stop the world, slumps wordlessly into my arms, and sobs.

The door behind me slides closed, then opens again. I don’t need to turn to check who it is. I can smell the bastard.

“Morgan,” I say. Then I hear the slap, the surprised whine, the metallic click of a firearm being cocked.

This is another thing I know about guns: you don’t cock and aim unless you’re ready to kill.

“Careful, Morgan,” I say, still holding on to Jackie. “You need him. You need his formula.”

He doesn’t, of course; Morgan already has Lorenzo’s notes. I’m only buying time.

And then it hits me: Lorenzo, dashing out of the upstairs lab to check his office, coming back and shaking his head to tell me the papers weren’t there. Morgan demanding a formula by tomorrow.

“Soldier,” Morgan says, “put it away.”

I turn from Jackie toward Lorenzo, who stands stock-still, ready to take a bullet in exchange for a slap, and I realize Morgan can’t possibly have taken the notes.

So, who the hell did?