Page 84 (1/2)

Neutrophils detected contact, reversed their grip, letting go of Bo Pan and clinging to Madha instead. In two days, she would kill her husband by driving the point of a clothes iron into the back of his skull.

“Would you like a bag, sir?”

Bo Pan shook his head. “No, thank you. I am fine.”

She offered him his change. “Thank you for shopping at Hudson News.”

He took his money, moved to the magazine rack. Bo Pan pretended to look at the covers showing bright cars, men with too much muscle or women showing too much skin. Americans certainly loved big b.r.e.a.s.t.s.

He tried hard to stay calm — his contact was late. His plane boarded in ten minutes.

What if Ling didn’t show?

He unwrapped a Sucret and popped it into his mouth. Cherry flavor. He liked that. His throat was scratchy, and it felt like he had a fever coming on.

Bo Pan heard the rattling of wheels rolling along the concourse’s tile floor. He looked up just as Ling rolled a dolly into Hudson News. The dolly held five blue plastic trays, each loaded with soft drinks. Ling met Bo Pan’s eyes but didn’t acknowledge him in any way.

Ling rolled his dolly of drinks toward the gla.s.s refrigerator.

Bo Pan turned quickly to follow; when he did, he b.u.mped into Paulette Duchovny from Minneapolis. Bo Pan’s hand came up immediately, reactively touching Paulette’s bare forearm.

“Oh!” he said. “Sorry, sorry.”

Three hours from that moment, Paulette would be back in Minneapolis. Two days after that, she would infect seven other people, including her son, Mark, and her daughter, Cindy. Mark and Cindy would lock up the house and stand guard as Paulette transformed into something that was not fully human. Before the sun set on the fourth day, Paulette Duchovny would do what a voice in her head told her to do — she would murder a family of five in their home, ending the slaughter by gutting a three-month-old baby.

Paulette smiled at Bo Pan. “That’s okay, no problem.”

He nodded again, then walked to the refrigerator. Ling was already there, the gla.s.s door pinned open by his dolly. He was pulling bottles of c.o.ke out of the plastic bins, then reaching into the refrigerator to place them behind the bottles that were already there.

Ling saw Bo Pan, then took a step back and gestured at the open refrigerator. “Go ahead, sir.”

“Thank you,” Bo Pan said. He grabbed a c.o.ke.

“Oh,” Ling said, then reached down to the floor and picked up a black f.a.n.n.y pack. The pack’s pouch looked like it held something cylindrical, perhaps about the size of a travel mug.