A stifling, dust-filled breeze came through the glassless window, bringing with it the stench of sewage and rotting meat from the butcher shop below.

Kneeling on a filthy mattress just inside the opening, Michael LaCroix adjusted the rifle’s scope and checked the face of each man as he came out of the cinder block house at the far end of the street. The meeting had lasted less than half an hour. But unable to see what was going on inside, Michael had worried. It wasn’t until he saw Baby exit the building that Michael relaxed. As long as he could see the man, he could protect him.

Lowering the rifle, he did an unaided visual sweep of the narrow dirt street around the four men. In an opening where two alleys met, a group of boys wearing tattered shorts kicked a half-deflated soccer ball with bare feet. Further down, two women sat on an old car bench seat under a lean-to of corrugated tin.

He lifted the rifle and began a check of doorways and windows, the scope narrowing his world to a circle less than six feet across. First up the right-hand side of the street, then down the left. He examined each shadow, each fluttering curtain, his practiced eye able to differentiate a human silhouette from the background.

Every few seconds he paused to check on Baby, now walking beside a tall man wearing a white silk suit. That would be the leader, the man Baby had come to see. Judging by their expressions and gestures, the conversation was amicable, the men happy with whatever had been decided. Michael could only guess at what they talked about, but it must be important. Because the man designated Baby was one of the president’s highest ranking advisors.

Michael began to move the scope away, but a flash of silver at the tall man’s waist caught his attention. It vanished under the edge of the suit jacket before he could be sure, but it looked like the handle of knife. He watched for another few seconds, but the flash wasn’t repeated so he moved on.

A knife was the least of his worries in a city where cartel hit men carried machine guns. It was why the two bodyguards, following a dozen yards behind, had been hired to protect Baby. Michael noted that though both men carried Uzis slung from shoulder straps the short barrels were pointed at the ground. And engaged in a conversation of their own, they paid little attention to their surroundings.

He frowned at their lack of professionalism. The cardinal rule for a bodyguard was to assume there was always a threat and act accordingly. It was a lesson hammered into him by both training and experience.

Doing their job for them, he began another check of the street. He was halfway up the left side when the cell phone lying next to his knee began to vibrate. Irritated, he picked it up. Only one person had the number, and he knew to never distract Michael while on a job.

“What?” he said, his tone harsh.

“Sorry to call,” said a voice Michael didn’t recognize.

Michael’s heart rate began to climb. “Who the hell is this?”

“Look,” the voice said. “You don’t know me, but my name is Andrews.”

“Where’s Tinmen?” Michael said, his irritation switching to fear. “Let me speak to him.”

“He’s not here. That’s why I’m calling.”

This was all wrong. Tinmen would never leave the phone. It was the one requirement of a handler, always be available during an operation. No matter that Michael and Tinmen couldn’t stand each other, on the job they were an inseparable team. Till death do us part, and maybe not even then.

“I want to talk to Tinmen.”

“I told you, he’s not here.”

Michael made his decision. He would grab the president’s advisor and get out. The man wouldn’t like it, but they could sort that out later.

“I’m hanging up,” Michael said.

“It’s about your daughter, Angela.” Andrews blurted the words before Michael could move the phone away from his ear.

“Go on,” Michael said, his body stiff, the street below forgotten.

“She’s been taken to the emergency room.”

Michael felt his chest tighten. “What happened?”

“The doctor suspects a narcotic overdose.”

Drugs? Angela?

Michael was about to ask if Pam, his estranged wife, knew about it when a shout, followed by automatic weapons fire, drew his attention back to the street.

Through the window, he saw three men coming out of an alley engaged in a gun battle with the bodyguards. Baby was already down, thrashing out the last of his life and a lot of blood through a wide slash where his throat had been. There was no sign of the tall man he’d been walking with.

Michael dropped the phone and lifted his rifle. Andrews was still talking, but Michael could no longer hear him. Reflexes blanked everything else out, reality shrinking to the center of the scope where two hair-thin lines crossed. He drew a breath, squeezed the trigger, and a gunman died. He flipped the bolt open and closed, and another man died.

The third gunman was turning now, starting back into the cover of the alley. He had taken only one step when Michael fired again. The wall on the other side of the man’s head bloomed red as the exit wound opened.

Baby. Michael had to get him out before the police arrived. But first….

He picked up the phone. It was dead, Andrews no longer on the line. He pressed send, automatically dialing the only number it was programmed to call. He let it ring four times before hanging up. He was on his own.

He disassembled the rifle, stowing the parts in the case without seeing them, his mind on escape with Baby, or what was left of him.

Somewhere, from deep down, the voice of a little girl called to her father, begging to be heard. He turned it away. Not now. No time.

But as he left the room, the voice gave one last howl, telling him there would never be time. Not now, not ever.

Sharon Zimmerman leaned back on the stool and frowned at the last line of her notes, hesitating before typing them into the computer. She wanted to believe the spread of the disease in this particular sample was an anomaly, that the agent developed to stop it was still effective. But instinct told her the latest results were no mistake. This new fungus was more virulent than first thought.

She looked at the grad student cleaning petri dishes at the other end of the soapstone lab bench. “Danielle? Are you certain these samples came from the same incubator as last week’s?”

“Yes, Dr. Zimmerman,” Danielle said, continuing to scrub. “Dr. Lathmore made sure I had the right samples.”

“I’m sure he did,” Sharon said, unable to keep the sarcasm out of her voice. Lathmore had hired Danielle for her breast size, not her brains. “And you followed isolation protocol?”

Danielle frowned down at the sink. “I did everything exactly as you showed me.”

“I just needed to be sure,” Sharon said, turning back to the computer.

As a good scientist, she knew to record all of her findings. But she hated making a mistake part of the official record. It just wouldn’t help when the Nobel Committee looked at her work.

She smiled and started typing, her fingers slowed by latex gloves. Nobel indeed. The only people who noticed mycologists were other mycologists. Studying fungi just wasn’t sexy enough to catch the world’s attention. She would have to be satisfied with solving this riddle for her own edification. And to keep James Lathmore signing her paychecks.

Sharon reread the entry, wondering again where the fungus came from. She had worked on it for almost six months now, and still Lathmore refused to tell her anything about the disease’s origin. He had gone so far as to lock her out of the greenhouse where it was propagated. The only samples she was allowed to work with were those brought to her in petri dishes, the fungus grown in the artificial environment of a sugar medium.

She told Lathmore she needed to work with the disease in its natural state--to see the actual plants affected and how it was passed from host to host. But he refused, telling her this was a government project and reminding her of the Government Secrets Act she had signed as part of her contract with the CrossBridge Corporation.

Government project. What bull. This wasn’t a biological weapons facility. They spent most of their time researching ways to keep Grandpa’s roses blooming. Lathmore just wanted credit for discovering this new fungus before anyone else.

Maybe that was why he had been so difficult to work with these last few weeks. He thought someone had gotten ahead of him and would publish their paper first.

Lathmore. She would have to tell him what she found before leaving, which would be soon. In half an hour Melisa would be waiting outside the school, and Sharon couldn’t stand the idea of not being there on time.

She knew it wasn’t really her daughter she worried about. Melisa would be fine, spending the time talking with friends, enjoying the break from her mother’s hovering. It was Sharon’s own fear of loss since her husband’s death that she needed to placate.

Sharon pulled off the latex gloves and paper shoe covers she wore in the lab, stood, and dropped them into the toxic waste container. “Will you lock up for me, Danielle?”

“Yes, Dr. Zimmerman.”

“And Danielle? I’m sorry about my earlier tone.”

Danielle stopped scrubbing and looked up, her surprised expression making her look even younger than the twenty-three Sharon knew her to be. “That’s okay. Dr. Lathmore said you were kind of uptight.”

Sharon blinked, taking a moment to be sure she’d heard correctly. Then she turned and headed for the locker room. Lathmore had told a grad student that his lead researcher was uptight? What a bastard.

In the locker room she traded her green surgical scrubs for a brown wool skirt and gold blouse. Before leaving, she forced herself to stop in front of the mirror to let down her hair and reapply a little makeup.

She’d started the mirror ritual about four months ago when her therapist had forced her to recognize how poorly she’d been caring for herself since Dan’s death. Not eating, dressing in whatever, her curly brown hair unstyled. She had been a mess. Even now, with the weight she’d put back on, the figure her husband had called “extra curvy” was only beginning to come back.

Satisfied that she had done the best she could, she headed for the elevator, taking it down to the second floor, where most of the offices were. She stopped in the hallway outside Lathmore’s office, but on hearing voices, decided to get her coat, then stop by again on the way out.

When she returned, the voices were louder, closer to yelling than talking. She recognized the loudest as belonging to June, Lathmore’s wife, who was probably drunk, as that seemed to be her usual state.

Sharon had had run-ins with Lathmore’s wife before. June continually accused Sharon of trying to steal her husband, once going so far as to slap Sharon in the face, her fingernails leaving scratches. All things considered, it would be better to wait until tomorrow to pass on her report. As she started to turn away, the door swung open and June lurched out, nearly running Sharon over.

“Bitch,” June said, the word slightly slurred. “Get out of my way.”

Lathmore came up behind her. “Please don’t talk like that,” he said, his tone almost pleading.

Twenty years older than Sharon’s thirty-two, James Lathmore normally carried himself with what people saw as arrogant superiority. But right now, with his face flushed and his breathing rapid, he looked like a man having a stroke.

“What the fuck are you gonna do about it?” June spread her legs slightly to keep her balance and glared at her husband, challenging him to say something.

Looking at June in profile, Sharon could see the results of the latest boob job. It didn’t help. Though less than ten years older than Sharon, alcohol and diet had taken a heavy toll on June, and the tight dress didn’t help things any.

“Stop it,” James said, reaching out to take her by the shoulder.

She slapped his hand away. “Don’t touch me! If you ever try to touch me, I’ll kill you!”

June swung around to face Sharon, staggering as she did so. “And you, bitch. I know you’re sleeping with him. But you won’t get rid of me that easy. I’ll still be here when you’re long gone.”

Drawn by the yelling, some of the office staff came out into the hallway. Seeing them, June straightened herself, and with exaggerated care walked to the elevator. As the doors began to close, she pointed her index finger at Sharon like a gun and pretended to shoot.

Lathmore looked at the people in the hall, then at Sharon, his expression changing from embarrassment to anger at his public humiliation. “What do you want?”

Sharon felt her own temper rise in response. He had no right to be mad at her. It was his behavior that exacerbated the situation with his wife. Everyone on the staff knew he was sleeping with Danielle. Sharon suspected Lathmore deliberately let his wife think he was sleeping with her to keep June from discovering the real situation.

“It can wait until tomorrow,” Sharon said, needing to get out before her anger got the better of her. “But you might want to check this afternoon’s lab results before you start writing papers for the science journals.”

Sharon was surprised to see the irritation vanish from his expression, replaced by what she interpreted as fear.

“Why? The anti-fungal you developed works perfectly.”

“Maybe. Maybe not. I could be a lot more sure if I had direct access to the infected plants,” she said, reminding him that holding back information was hindering her research. “Without knowing how the fungus attacks its host, I can’t be positive about anything.”

“I’m sure whatever you think is wrong was just a mistake. I’ll take a look at your results myself.”

Sharon locked eyes with him for a moment, then gave it up. “Fine. Let me know if you find anything.”

She started down the hall. Halfway to the elevator she stopped, the image of June pointing the pretend gun unsettling her. Turning away, she took the stairs.