"Yeah?"
"Actually, I was thinking of resigning." There. This was the first time she'd said it out loud and just like that, it became real.
Resigning from the CDC. Not an easy decision. For a scientist, a job at the CDC was top tier, a sign of scientific excellence, and you left the job only if you were planning on going into private industry for about ten times the salary. "For the moment, I can say I have health issues, ask for medical leave. And I have a place I can go to for ten days. It's-" She stopped when Hammer held up a long, thin hand.
"Don't tell me. I can't betray what I don't know."
Kay shut up. He was absolutely right.
She'd worked out a place to go. What she hadn't worked out was how sad it made her feel to abandon her job, abandon Nick, to hole up and … wait. Depending on how Mike published and what happened after that, she'd know whether she'd have to leave the country.
Felicity could get some fake documents for her. She'd done it before.
Kay cleared her throat, which had suddenly tightened. "Like I said, I might quit. I can't work in a place where I don't trust my bosses."
"There aren't many places anymore where you can do important work and can trust your bosses completely," Mike said seriously.
Kay nodded. It was true.
They were both silent. Bad things were happening everywhere, it seemed, and bad people were rising to the top. Staying clean was becoming harder and harder. One of her college friends had quit working at a biotech company and had become a baker. Said getting up at 4 a.m. was better than making drugs that made people sicker.
Okay. Kay had done what she was supposed to do. She had honored Priyanka's request from beyond the grave. It was her last link with her best friend, who'd died to get that information to her. Kay had to swallow the lump in her throat.
But, she'd done her duty. She'd handed off a problem to a very capable man who would know what to do with the flash drive and its contents. He'd know how to investigate it and publish the findings in a way that couldn't be covered up.
And Kay would be without a job, possibly without a career, and alone. She wasn't dragging anyone into her problems.
She'd always been a future-oriented person, always thinking ahead. Now a gray veil had been drawn across the world. There was no future she could see. All she could see were walls and darkness.
She'd already decided to quit in her heart. The feeling was there, she just hadn't recognized it yet because it was so painful to think about. No matter what, she was done. There was no way she could work where she wasn't sure what they were working for. Were they trying to eradicate diseases or creating new ones?
"Disappear," Mike said, new lines appearing in his face. "For a while at least. You have somewhere you can disappear to, you said?"
She nodded. An old family homestead that belonged to her maternal grandparents, and was still in their name twenty years after their deaths. Her grandfather had insisted on keeping the records murky, essentially untraceable. She remembered being amused at his paranoia when she was in college, certain that the world was rational and filled with rational and good people. She'd thought it a minor eccentricity of her grandfather's to keep what was essentially a bolt hole no one knew about.
It was entirely possible that the small country house in the woods near Denver was going to save her life. She'd rent a car with cash and drive there.
"Like I said, don't tell me where it is," Mike said. Their eyes met again in perfect understanding. "But I need a way to communicate with you. We continue with our old system?"
"Yes." He'd taken over Priyanka's password to the message board.
"If I'm being forced to send the message, if there's danger to you, I will include the word 'passage' in the message. If you read 'passage' in the message … run. Immediately."
She bowed her head. "Understood."
This was stuff she read about in thrillers. Never in a million years could she have imagined her life would take this turn, that it would be dependent upon passwords and safe houses and keeping her head low.
"Here." He held out a stiff blue and gold passport. She took it, flipped through it. It was a passport for a woman, Flora Nunes, with her photograph. She couldn't read the text. It was in Portuguese.
"What's this?"
Mike sighed. "A Brazilian passport. Don't worry, it's genuine. I had one for Priyanka, before-before-"
He stopped, swallowed.
"Before Priyanka was killed," Kay said softly.
"Yes. If this breaks unexpectedly or if you feel you are in immediate danger, buy a round-trip ticket for the first flight you can to Rio with this … " He held out a VISA card in the name of Flora Nunes. "Throw away the return ticket. I'll know if you have to run. By the time you're in Rio, check our email and I'll have arranged a safe house."