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  Thomas stood and stepped into the aisle. He walked toward the front, feeling self-conscious in the black slacks and white shirt he’d purchased at the mall on their way here from the airport. He must look very, very strange. Here is the man who has seen the end of the world. He was as disconnected from their reality as the Hulk or Spiderman.

  He covered the mike. “I’m not sure this is going to do any good,” he said quietly. The president held him with a steady gaze.

  “Make them believe, Thomas,” Gains said. “Let them ask their questions.” He offered an anemic smile and stepped aside.

  Thomas faced the audience. Twenty-three sets of eyes, as unsure and awkward as he was, stared at him.

  He felt sweat bead on his forehead. If they knew how uncertain he felt, his information would fall on deaf ears. He had to play his part with as much conviction as he could muster. It didn’t matter if they accepted him or liked him. Only that they heard him.

  “I know this all sounds pretty crazy to some of you, maybe all of you. And that’s okay.” His voice sounded loud in the still room. “My name is Thomas Hunter, and the fact is, no matter how I know what I know—no matter how incredible it sounds to you—I do know a few things. If you follow what I’m about to tell you, you may have a chance. If you don’t, you’ll probably be dead in less than twenty-one days.”

  He sounded far too confident. Even cocky. But it was the only way he knew in this reality.

  “Should I continue?”

  “Continue, Thomas,” the president said behind him.

  His reservations fell like loosed chains. The plain truth was that he probably had more to offer the country than any other person in this room. And not because he wanted to carry such a responsibility. He had nothing to lose. None of them did.

  “Thank you.”

  Thomas strolled to his right, then remembered the mike and walked back, studying them. He may get only one shot at this, so he would give it to them in a language that would at least cause a stir.

  “I’ve lived a lifetime in the past two weeks. I’ve also learned some things in that lifetime. In particular, that most men and women will yield to the strong currents sucking them into the seas of ruin. Only the strongest in mind and spirit will swim against that current. A bit philosophical maybe, but it’s what some people say where I come from, and I agree.”

  He paused and made eye contact with the navy-suited woman whose question had led to Gains’s introduction.

  “You’ll all be sucked out to sea if you’re not very, very careful. I know I must sound like a spiritual adviser to you. Not so. I’m only speaking what I know, and here’s what I know.”

  The woman was smiling gently. Support or incredulity, he didn’t know. Didn’t care.

  “I know that the Swiss will have the antivirus if he doesn’t already. I know this because that’s what the history books say. Some people survive. Without an antivirus any survival would be impossible.”

  Thomas took a breath and tried to read them, but the difference between being shocked by a speaker’s knowledge and being shocked by his audacity was a difficult thing to gauge.

  “Furthermore, I know that the U.S. will eventually yield to his demands and hand over its weapons. I know that the whole world will give in to this man, and even then, half of the world’s population will die, though I can only guess which half. This will lead into a time of terrible tribulation.”

  He sounded like a prophet, or like a schoolteacher lecturing children. It was the last thing he wanted, although he supposed in some unconventional way he was a prophet. Was it possible that he was meant to be here today?

  “If you give in to the Swiss, you’ll follow the course of history as it’s written. You’ll be sucked out to sea. Your only hope is to resist those who demand you yield. You’ll either find a way to change history, or you’ll follow its course and die, as it is written.”

  “Excuse me.”

  It was Olsen, the black-haired man who Bob claimed was an enemy of the president. He was grinning wickedly.

  “Yes, Mr. Olsen?”

  The man’s eyes twitched. He hadn’t expected to be called by name.

  “You’re saying that you’re a psychic? The president is now counseling psychics?”

  “I don’t even believe in psychics,” Thomas said. “I am simply someone who knows more than you do about a few things. The fact, for example, that you will die in less than twenty-one days due to massive hemorrhaging in your heart and lungs and liver. You will have less than twenty-four hours from the onset of symptoms to your death. I know it all sounds a bit harsh, but then I’m assuming none of you has the time for games.”

  Olsen’s smug grin vanished.

  “I also suspect that within one week you will lead a motion to give in to Svensson’s demands. That’s not from the Books of Histories, you understand. It’s my judgment based on what I’ve observed of you today. If I’m right, you are the kind of man the rest in this room must resist.”

  Gains chuckled nervously. “I’m sure Thomas isn’t entirely sincere. He has unique . . . wit, as I’m sure you can see. Are there other questions?”

  “Are you serious?” Olsen demanded, looking at Gains. “You actually have the audacity to parade a circus act in front of us at a time like this?”

  “Dead serious!” Gains said. “We’re here today because we didn’t listen to this man two weeks ago. He told us what, he told us where, he told us when, and he told us why, and we ignored him. I suggest you take every word he speaks as though it were from God himself.”

  Thomas cringed. He hardly faulted the group for their doubt. They had no reference against which to judge him.

  “So you learned about all of this because it’s all recorded in some history books in another reality?” the navy-suited woman asked.

  “Your name?” Thomas asked.

  “Clarice Morton,” she said, glancing at the president. “Congresswoman Morton.”

  “The answer is yes, Ms. Morton. I really did. Any number of events can confirm that. I knew about the Raison Strain over a week ago. I reported it to the State Department and then to the Centers for Disease Control. When neither was helpful, I flew to Bangkok myself. In an admittedly desperate act, I kidnapped Monique de Raison—perhaps you heard about that. I was attempting to help her understand how dangerous her vaccine really was. Needless to say, she now understands.”

  “So you convinced her before this all happened?”

  “She demanded specific information from me. I went into the histories and retrieved the information. She knew then. That was before Carlos shot me and took her. They’re undoubtedly using her now to create the antivirus.”

  “You were shot?”

  “A very long story, Ms. Morton. Moot at this point.”

  Gains was having difficulty suppressing a small grin.

  “So if this really is all true, if you can get information about the future as a matter of history—and for the moment I’m going to believe you can—then can you find out what happens next?”

  “If I could find the Books of Histories, technically, yes. I could.”

  She glanced at the president. “And if you can find out what is going to happen, then we might be able to find out how to stop it, right?”

  “We might be able to, yes. Assuming history can be changed.”

  “But we have to assume it can be, or all of this is all moot, as you say.”

  “Agreed.”

  “So then can you find out what happens next?”

  Thomas had understood where she was going, but not until now did her simple suggestion strike a chord in his mind. The problem, of course, was that the Books of Histories were no longer available. He’d lived with that realization for fifteen years. But rumor was they still existed. He’d never had reason to search them out. Defending the forests from the Horde and celebrating the Great Romance had been his primary passion in the forest. Now he had a very good reason to search them out. They might provide a way o
ut of this mess, precisely as Clarice was suggesting.

  “Actually, the Books of Histories . . . are not presently available.”

  A murmur rippled through the room. It was as if this little bit of information actually interested them. They were incensed. How convenient. The Books of Histories have gone missing! Yes, of course, what did you expect? It always works that way.

  Or maybe they were disappointed. Some of them at least wanted to believe everything he had said.

  And so they should. Decent men and women could see sincerity when it stared them in the face.

  “This is absurd!” Olsen said.

  “Then I’m afraid that I’m leaning toward the absurd, Dwight,” the president said. “Thomas has earned himself a voice. And I think Clarice is on to something. Can you find anything more for us, Thomas?”

  Could he? His answer was as calculating as it was truthful. “Maybe.”

  Olsen muttered something, but Thomas couldn’t make it out.

  The president closed his folder. “Good. Ladies and gentlemen, please send any additional thoughts and comments through my staff. Good evening. And may God preserve our nation.” He stood and left the room.

  Now the crisis would divide.

  SIX MORE cities,” Phil Grant said, slapping the folder down on the coffee table. His maroon silk tie hung loose around his neck. He ran a finger under his collar and loosened it even more. “Including St. Petersburg. They’re climbing the walls. If the Russians keep this under their hats, it’ll be a miracle.”

  “This . . . this is a nightmare,” his assistant said. Thomas watched Dempsey walk to the window and stare out with a lost gaze. “The Russians have decades of experience keeping things under the lid. I’d worry about the United States. If I were a betting man, I’d say Olsen’s already leaking this. How many did you say?”

  “Twenty. All airports. Like clockwork.”

  “We aren’t closing the airports?”

  “CDC ran another simulation using the latest data. They say closing the airports won’t help at this point. There’ve been over ten thousand flights in the continental U.S. since the virus first hit New York. Conservative estimates have a quarter of the country exposed already.”

  Grant put his elbows on his knees and formed a tent with his fingers. A slight tremor shook his hands. Dempsey paced back from the window, frowning. Sweat darkened his pale blue shirt at the armpits. The full reality of what had been delivered to the United States of America was finally and terribly settling into the CIA.

  Grant had brought Thomas to the CIA headquarters in Langley forty-five minutes ago.

  “You’re convinced this psychologist is worth our time?” Thomas asked. “It just seems like a lot of downtime.”

  “On the contrary, trying to unlock that mind of yours is the only thing that makes sense where you’re concerned,” Grant said.

  “Memories, maybe. But I wouldn’t assume that whatever is happening is happening in my head,” Thomas replied.

  “I’ll settle for memories. If you gave the antivirus characteristics to Carlos like you think you may have, that information would be a memory. With any luck Dr. Myles Bancroft can stimulate that memory. You have no information, none whatsoever, on where Svensson might be holing up?”

  “None.”

  “Or where he could have Monique?”

  “I assume she’s wherever he is. The only communication has been through the faxes, sent from an apartment in Bangkok. We took it down six hours ago. It was empty except for a laptop. He’s using relays. Smart to stay off the Web by using facsimile. The last fax came from an address in Istanbul. As far as we know, he has a hundred relays. Took us how long to track down Bin Laden? This guy could be worse. But in a few days I doubt it will matter. As you pointed out earlier, he’s undoubtedly working with others. Likely a country. You’ll know where to look then.”

  “But only because he wants us to know. We can’t very well bomb Argentina or whatever country he’s using. Not as long as he has the antivirus.” The director stood and grunted. “The world’s coming apart at the seams and we’re sitting here, blind as bats,” Grant replied.

  “Whatever happens, don’t let anyone talk the president into compromising,” Thomas said.

  “I think you’ll have the opportunity to do that yourself,” Grant said. “He wants to meet with you personally tomorrow.”

  The phone rang. Grant snatched it up and listened for a moment. “On our way.” He dropped the phone in its cradle. “He’s ready. Let’s go.”

  DR. MYLES Bancroft was a frumpy, short man with wrinkled slacks and facial hair poking out of his orifices, overall not the kind of man most people would associate with the Pulitzer Prize. He wore a small knowing grin that was immediately disarming—a good thing, considering what he played with.

  People’s minds.

  His lab occupied a small basement on the south side of Johns Hopkins’s campus. They’d flown Thomas in by helicopter and hurried him down the steps as if he were a man committed to the witness protection program and they’d received warnings of snipers on the adjoining roofs.

  Thomas faced the cognitive psychologist in the white concrete room. Two of Grant’s men waited with crossed legs in the lobby. Grant had remained in Langley with a thousand concerns clogging his mind.

  “So basically you’re going to try to hypnotize me, and then you’re going to hook me up to these machines of yours and make me fall asleep while you toy with my mind using electrical stimuli.”

  Bancroft grinned. “Basically, yes. I describe it using more glamorous, fun words, but in essence you have the picture, lad. Hypnosis can be rather unreliable. I won’t josh you. It requires a particularly cooperative subject, and I would like you to be that subject. But even if you’re not, I may be able to accomplish some interesting results by Frankensteining you.” Another grin.

  Thomas liked this man immensely. “And can you explain this Frankensteining of yours? In terms I can understand?”

  “Let me give it a whirl. The brain does record everything; I’m sure you know that. We don’t know precisely how to access the information externally or to record memories, et cetera, et cetera. But we are getting close. We hook you up to these wires here and we can record the wave signatures emitted by the brain. Unfortunately, we’re a bit fuzzy on the brain’s language, so when we see a zip and a zap, we know it means something, but we don’t yet know what zip or zap means. Follow?”

  “So basically you’re clueless.”

  “That about summarizes it. Shall we get started?”

  “Seriously.”

  “Well, it’s rather . . . speculative, I must admit, but here you go: I have been developing a way to stimulate memories. Different brain activities have different wave signatures. For example, in the simplest of terms, conceptual activity, or waking thought, looks different from perceptual, dream thought. I’ve been mapping and identifying those signatures for some time. Among countless other discoveries, we’ve learned that there’s a connection between dreams and memories—similar signatures, you see. Similar brain language, as it were. Essentially what I’m going to do is record the signatures from your dreams and then force-feed them into the section of your brain that typically holds memory. This seems to excite the memory. The effect isn’t permanent, but it does stimulate the memories of most subjects.”

  “Hmm. But you can’t isolate any particular memories. You just have a general hope that I wake up remembering more than when I fell asleep.”

  “In some cases, yes. In others, subjects have dreams that turn out to be actual memories. It’s like pouring liquid into a cup already brimming with water or, in this case, memories. When you pour the liquid in, the water is displaced over the lip. Quite fun actually. The memory stimulation even seems to help some subjects remember the dreams themselves. As you know, the average person experiences five dreams per night and remembers one at the most. Not so when I hook you up. Shall we begin?”

  “Why not?”

>   “First, some basics. Vitals and whatnot. I need to draw some blood and have it analyzed by the lab for several common diseases that affect the mind. Just covering our bases.”

  Half an hour later, after a brief battery of simple tests followed by five failed attempts to lure Thomas into a hypnotic state, Bancroft changed tracks and hooked him up to the EEG machine. He connected twelve small electrodes to various parts of his head before feeding him a pill that would calm him without interfering with brain activity.

  Then he turned down the lights and left the room. Moments later, soft music began to play through ceiling speakers. The chair Thomas lay in was similar to a dentist’s chair. He wondered if there was a pill that could block his dreams. It was the last thought he had before slipping into deep sleep.

  MIKE OREAR left his office at CNN at six and struggled through traffic for the typical hour it took to reach Theresa Sumner’s new home on the south side. He hadn’t planned on seeing her tonight, though he wasn’t complaining.

  She had been called off to some assignment in Bangkok for the CDC and returned earlier today to another private meeting in Washington. A bit unusual, but only a bit. They both lived lives full of curve balls and sudden changes in plan.

  Theresa had called him from the tarmac at Reagan International, telling him to get his sorry self to her house tonight by eight. She was in one of her irresistibly bossy moods, and after giving her a piece of his mind, mostly nonsense that made for good drama, he agreed as they both knew he would before she’d even asked. He’d only been to her new house three or four times in the ten months they’d dated, and he never left disappointed.

  A white box-looking car—a Volvo—rode to his right and a black Lincoln to his left. Neither of the drivers looked at him when he drilled them with a good stare. This was the rush hour in Atlanta, and everyone was lost in his own world, oblivious to anyone else’s. These zombies floated through life as if nothing would ever matter in the end.