“And what does that have to do with you?” Olin asks quietly. “Or NATO?”

“How can the recurrence of the plague in Europe not represent a potential security threat?”

“This is an issue for Italian Public Health,” Olin mutters, her exasperation revealing traces of her usually nonexistent French accent. “If NATO were to get involved every time a European tourist brought something back from the developing world—”

“This isn’t some sex tourist lugging antibiotic-resistant gonorrhea back from Cambodia. It’s the fucking plague, Monique!”

“We only go in when we are invited,” Olin says, unmoved. “Not before.”

“You could get us that invitation,” Alana persists, realizing she would be wise to back off but was unable to stop herself.

“Maybe, maybe not,” Olin says. “But I won’t try. And you will return to Brussels. Immediately.”

“I need another day or so, Monique. Just to establish whether this case is—”

“I said no, Alana! Besides, the WHO is already on the way to Genoa.”

The words bristle more than Olin’s sharp tone. If Alana had stuck with the World Health Organization, she might have been put in charge of the mission herself. “Who is leading their team?”

“Byron Menke.”

Alana shakes her head but holds her tongue. She had never personally worked with the Canadian epidemiologist at the WHO, but she remembers his reputation for being heavy-handed and, at times, tactless—an ends-justify-the-means kind of investigator.

“Come back to Brussels, Alana,” Olin says coolly.

“First thing tomorrow morning.”

“Any longer and you might not have an office to return to.” With that, the line goes dead.

Alana remembers something her mother—an orthopedic surgeon who retired from the army with the rank of colonel—once told her: “The very first words out of your mouth were back talk, darling. How did you ever end up in the military?” It was true. Army brat or not, Alana wonders what self-destructive instinct would lead someone as headstrong as herself to join the most hierarchical institutions in the world, including the U.S. military, the WHO, and, perhaps worst of all, NATO.

Her shoulder aches again, and she rubs it to no real effect. How different life would have been if not for that friendly fire incident, eleven years ago, that leveled the field hospital in the Afghani province of Logar. Four surgeries later, Alana still suffers from chronic shoulder pain and permanent numbness in her ring and little fingers. Sometimes her shoulder spontaneously dislocates if she raises her arm too quickly. Were it not for the injury, she would have been an established trauma surgeon by now, instead of chasing microscopic phantoms across the globe. In her heart, Alana knows she was always destined for this work, but for reasons she doesn’t even understand, she still views the injury as a failure, and hides it from most people. Nico used to tell her that the scars made her look sexier. It was a testament to how deeply she trusted him that she ever allowed him to touch them.