One hour. Davies had promised to call back in one hour. As of now, seventy-one minutes had passed. Mitch paced nervously. What did it mean? Had something changed? Had something happened to them? He didn't have anything to offer the general, but still he anxiously awaited the call, hoping against hope that he could talk the man into letting him see them or speak to them. He glanced at his watch again: seventy-three minutes.

Dariela's voice snapped him to attention.

"There's a car approaching." She peered out the window, gun in hand. "Looks like the driver and two passengers, but that's all I can make out."

"Let's go to the vehicle bay," Abe suggested.

"Maybe I can get a clear shot from there."

They headed toward the rear of the plane while Mitch went to the window. The car had come to a stop about one hundred feet away. Soon a rear door opened and a passenger exited. Could it be? It was! It was Clementine, walking toward the airplane. He ran for the vehicle bay and arrived just in time to see Abe ushering her aboard as the car sped away.

He pulled her frantically into a hug.

"Are you all right?" He demanded. "All you all right?"

"Yeah," the girl replied. "But you have to help Jamie!"

"You know where she is?"

"Yeah." She pointed to the car just turning a corner to disappear from view.

"Why did they let you go, but not her?" Abe wondered.

"She told him to," Clem answered. "She made a deal with him."

"Who?" Mitch asked.

"Logan. She told him if he brought me here safely, she'd do whatever he wanted."

That's not possible. She said she killed Logan. The 'whatever he wanted' part filled Mitch with dread. "Are you sure his name was Logan?"

"Uh huh. She promised me she wouldn't let them hurt me. Please help her. He has handcuffs on her, and a gun."

Mitch flashed his best 'I told you so' glare at Dariela and Allison.

"We will," he reassured his daughter. "We will. Let's, uh, let's get you upstairs so we can call your mom and Justin, let them know you're safe."

Once Clementine had spoken with her mother, Mitch took over the phone for a grown up discussion. They had a real problem: Clementine clearly wasn't safe in the 'safe zone'. It was entirely possible that her abductors would try again. But she wasn't exactly safe on the plane, either. Only a few days had passed since they, too, had been overrun by bad guys. And the situation with Jackson and Jamie could turn very ugly very quickly. The eventual decision was that Audra and Justin would come get her, then drive to a different safe zone so that Davies wouldn't know where to look. They would arrive in roughly two hours.

He gave the girl the grand tour of the plane, showed her all of the cool, unusual animals, and set her up in front of the TV upstairs.

Now, back to the hunt for Jamie and Jackson. She was away from Davies, which was good, but being held by Logan, which was bad.

He stood with the others in the lab, hoping to map out a more solid plan.

"We know your daughter is safe," Abe said. "Now we have to find Jamie."

"You won't have to look very hard," a familiar voice intoned.

Stunned, they turned to see Jamie standing in the doorway, bloodied but alive.

"Jamie!" Mitch rushed to her. The fear was evident in his voice. "Are you ok?"

"More or less," she hedged. As Mitch dabbed tentatively at the blood, she added, "most of its not mine."

He led her upstairs, away from the group and into her room.

"Thank you for helping Clem."

"Is she ok? Not too traumatized?"

"She seems good. Uh, I'm almost afraid to ask, but Logan…?"

"Suffice to say he's dead for real now." She motioned toward the bathroom. "I really need a shower."

Mitch nodded. "Ok."

His feelings about the demise of the younger man were, to say the least, mixed. He was thrilled that Jamie was safe, but worried about the toll another killing would take on her fragile mental state. He didn't look forward to telling her about her lab results, especially when she learned that the rest of the team already knew.

He decided to pass the time by letting Clem know that Jamie was back, and would be fine. At least he could make one person happy.

"Mitch!" Came the shout over the intercom.

He bolted down the stairs as the planes engines fired. By the time he reached the bottom riser, they were taxiing.

"Davies and his cronies are here!" Dariela told him.

"I told Trotter to get airborne before they can board," Abe said.

"I guess he knows the drill by now," Mitch mused. A glance out the window revealed at least two trucks trailing them. He braced against the wall as the wheels left the ground and the plane lurched.

Damn, what about Audra? I guess Clem's with us by default now.

"We should continue to Pangaea," Abe suggested. "It's probable that Jackson has not yet made his way to Washington. We can get the saber-toothed cat and return with the cure."

"Ok," Jamie called from the top of the stairs. "I had two places left with no bruises…maybe a little warning before taking off next time." She flashed a grin to let them know she wasn't actually angry. "When you get a chance, Doc, I could use a little help with my hand."

"All right, let me get some supplies and I'll be up in a minute."

Jamie headed to the living quarters, where she found an anxious Clementine.

"Apparently, we're going somewhere now," she smiled kindly at the girl.

"Your hand…" Clem's eyes widened.

Jamie hadn't realized how gory it looked. It was purple and lacerated, and now it was beginning to swell.

"It's not as bad as it looks," she said. "I just caught it in the door when I was getting away."

"How did you get away?"

Jamie fell silent, unable to come up with an appropriate response. Fortunately, Mitch had come up behind her and quickly changed the subject.

"Let's look at that hand," he said. "We're just going into the next room, Clem."

Back in her bedroom, Mitch gently examined the tortured hand and wrist.

"Thanks. I didn't know how to answer that one."

He grimaced at the mess of shattered bone. "Do I want to know what happened here?"

"Probably not," she wrinkled her nose. "I smashed it with a crow bar."

"On purpose?!"

"Yeah, I had to to get out of the cuffs."

He exhaled slowly. "Well," he began, "the bad news is…this is going to require many hours of surgery to ever be anywhere near normal."

"And the good news?"

"Between the foot and the hand, I'm pretty sure you're going to be bionic."

"Awesome." She grinned sarcastically and gave him a thumbs up with her uninjured hand.

"For now, we can splint it. Immobilization should help a bit with the pain. We have some anti-inflammatories that we can use, too. Over the counter stuff. Sorry to say, I don't have anything stronger. That has to hurt like a son of a bitch."

"It does, but it's ok."

He set to work cleaning her wounds and splinting her arm, wondering when the best time would be to approach the other issue. She pulled him away from his thoughts.

"Any luck locating Jackson?"

"That's a big fat negatory. And now, Davies tried to storm us, so we had to take off."

"What's the plan?"

"We're thinking that Jackson doesn't have the kind of transportation we have. He's probably not even in D.C. yet. So we're going to go on to Costa Rica, get the cat and, if the stars are aligned, come back to find Jackson with the cure at the ready."

"We're bringing your daughter?"

"The initial plan was for her mom to come get her and take her to the Portland safe zone. But Davies put the kibosh on that."

Should I tell her Allison left the plane to go to Capitol Hill for an errand? Or should I not even broach the subject? Alison's going to be so irritated to return and find her plane gone. He nearly laughed aloud.

"What's so funny?"

"I'm wondering if I should point out that while we've added Clem to our list of traveling companions, we've subtracted Allison. She's not going to be too happy about the unplanned departure."

"I'll take that trade-off any day."

He released her arm. "How's that?"

"Better," she told him gratefully. "I assume I'll be getting a bill for all this?"

"Count on it. Lots of bills going out. We've done everything on this plane except deliver a baby and transplant a heart."

"There's still time."

"Bite your tongue."

"Where's your sense of adventure?" She teased.

"I'm all adventured-out this week, thank you."

"Maybe next week."

"Well, given that I'm a DVM not an MD, any attempt to pursue payment could end up with me behind bars for practicing medicine without a license."

Jamie chuckled. "It'll be our little secret. And just so you know, I'd rather have you treat me than any MD I've ever encountered."

"There is something I need to talk to you about," he blurted.

"Like what?"

"Your test results. There's no easy way to tell you this…you have the mutation."

After a brief pause, she asked quietly, "are you sure?"

"Yes. I've double—and triple—checked. It's definitely there."

"It actually explains a lot," she said sadly.

"Yeah, it kinda does."

"So what does it mean? Am I going to end up like Jackson's mom?"

"No."

"You can't know that." There was no challenge to her tone, only resignation.

"Actually, I can. See, here's the thing: yours is different from theirs. More…primitive."

"Primitive?"

"Yes. We've previously seen two different incarnations of this thing. Yours is a third. But I think yours actually is the earliest of the three."

She stared intently at him.

"Think of it like a computer program. Yours was the first version to be released—the beta test, if you will. Then they worked out some bugs and released it in the form we saw last summer. The Evan Lee Hartley version. But we cured it. So they pulled it back, tweaked it and now we have the upgraded, 2.0 version. That's the one Jackson has…and his mother, and Kovacs."

"Each one increases in intensity," Jamie added.

"Yes. Remember, Hartley wasn't an indiscriminate killer. He wasn't put off by a little collateral damage, but he always had specific targets. He was very controlled and purposeful in what he did."

"True."

"And you've proven that you are, too. You've been very cunning and calculated. The triple helix, on the other hand, makes its host just randomly slaughter anything that moves."

"Cunning and calculated, two words I would never have thought would be used to describe me. And yet I'm surprisingly cool with it."

Mitch shrugged. "Consider the alternative."

"Ok," Jamie wanted to make sure she was following correctly. "So Jackson got his from an injection his father gave him. Then it lay dormant for thirteen years until he was bitten by the dog. And Hartley said he got it from Robert Oz, too, but his is different than Jackson's? Where did I get it? And what triggered it? I haven't been bitten at all. And if its the first version, how did I get it after Jackson got his?"

"I don't know," he told her truthfully. "But I think you've probably had it for a very long time, longer perhaps than Jackson."

"That would explain why the leopards in Zambia attacked those guys but ignored me. Come to think of it, every time I've thought an animal was attacking, there was someone else with me. Is it possible that the other person was always the target? When I'm alone, they've sniffed me, or just walked right by me. Oh my God, how could I not have known this thing was in me?"

"Who in their right mind would suspect such a thing?"

"So will the triple helix cure work on me?"

"I don't know that, either. But I believe it will. And if it doesn't, then we break into the office in D.C. and get our hands on our earlier cure." He grasped her right hand in his. "One way or another, we will get through this."

"We will." She hoped she sounded more confident than she felt.

"There is one more thing," he said.

"Of course there is."

"The others already know about this. I'm sorry, but it didn't seem prudent to withhold information from the people directly involved. They need to know what they're dealing with."

She bit her lip.

"They don't know anything that you told me in private, though."

"Ok." She exhaled as she buried her face in his chest.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

It was late afternoon when they left Washington. The six and a half hour flight time to the Costa Rican city of San Jose would place them there around ten at night. Then, they would have to charter a boat for the short trip to Pangaea. Logistically, this was a problem. It would be much easier to find the cat in the daylight. Unfortunately, though, time was not on their side. They didn't have the luxury of waiting for sunrise. They had only fifty-eight more hours.

They were winging their way down the eastern seaboard by dinner time. The group gathered around the kitchen island.

"Mr. Krabbs is the man!" Dariela enthused.

"I still like Gary best," Clementine grinned. "'Snail Bites' is like the best episode ever."

"I'm a Squidward man myself," Mitch chimed in.

"I'll bet," Dariela laughed. "You are Squidward!"

"I'll wear that as a badge of honor."

"He's the smartest," Clem said. "He's funny 'cause he's so snarky but underneath he really does care about the others."

"Like I was saying…" The ranger smiled. "Man, I will never look at you again without seeing a tall, skinny squid."

"Perfect," Mitch said good-naturedly. "That's just what I was hoping for."

Jamie shook her head. Note to self: watch more SpongeBob. She found it amusing to note how much like Mitch Clementine was. She found herself daring to imagine a future with the man, a future that included his child, and she kind of looked forward to it.

Seemingly out of the blue, Mitch jumped up and scrambled to the intercom.

"Trotter, it's Mitch. We need to change course. We need to make a pit stop….Folsom, Louisiana."

"Louisiana? What is in Louisiana?" Dariela asked.

"It just occurred to me. It's not what is in Louisiana," Mitch responded. "It's what was in Louisiana."

"The Folsom chemical spill," Jamie said simply.

"Right on. You always knew it was worse than the government let on, and you were right. We need to get as close to ground zero as possible. We need soil and ground water samples."

"You think that's where I got it."

"It's the only thing that makes any sense. It was what, twenty years ago?"

Jamie nodded in affirmation.

"If I'm right," Mitch explained, "that's where it all began. Suppose the source of the mother cell is the site of the 1895 outbreak. Then Reiden discovers this substance a hundred years later and realizes it's vector potential. They begin using it. Then there's the terrible accident in Folsom. Robert Oz, who's been studying animal behavior, notices something hinky going on and collects samples. He tries to tell anyone who will listen, but, of course, no one listens. He uses the samples to create a synthetic version with which he then begins human experimentation."

"What will the soil and water samples tell us?" Abe asked.

"Most importantly, whether I'm right. And of course there's that slight possibility we may need them for the cure."

"But when it first happened," Jamie argued, "the EPA did all kinds of testing."

"Yes, but they weren't testing for the same things we are."

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

"Why can't I go?" Clementine protested as Mitch attempted to coax her to climb into bed for the night.

"Because one, it's very late, and two, it's just safer for you to stay here."

"By myself?"

"No, Dariela's going to stay aboard. She'll be within earshot if you wake up and need something."

"Is Jamie going?"

"Yes," Mitch explained, "it's her hometown. We need her familiarity with the area."

At last, he convinced the girl to try to get some sleep.

He climbed into the passenger seat beside Jamie. "Shotgun."

"Don't worry," Abe grumbled, "the best place for the largest man is the back seat."

"So we're good, then" Mitch smirked.

Jamie piloted the vehicle out of the plane. "My memory's a little fuzzy, but Google says the Reiden plant was out Pickett Road, a few miles past the high school. Maybe fifteen minutes from here."

They drove on through the darkness, the headlights illuminating a narrow swath of roadway.

"Didn't that sign say 'Pickett Road'?" Mitch pointed as they whizzed past it.

"Making a detour," Jamie said distantly.

Presently, she turned up a long drive way, coming to a stop in front of an old farmhouse. The place had clearly been abandoned for years. Weeds had overtaken the property and the home was dilapidated.

"Are we getting out here?" Mitch asked as Jamie clung to the wheel and stared at the house.

She remained silent, a faraway look in her eyes.

"Jamie?" Abe began. Mitch raised his hand to silence him.

After a minute or so, she turned to the men.

"I'm sorry, I haven't been here in a really long time. I just felt compelled to see it."

"Your house?" Mitch asked.

"It was."

"Go ahead. Get out and look around."

"No," she sniffed. "There's nothing here for me now." She gave a reassuring half-smile and shifted back into drive. "Time to close the door on the past."

They came upon the site of the chemical spill and collected their samples. In the interest of thoroughness, Mitch made certain to get samples at the epicenter, then each half mile away until five miles had been reached. Time consuming, he knew, but if it could be used later to project the number of victims or prove Reiden's culpability, it would be worth it.

They returned to the plane having accomplished what they set out to do and immediately took off for Costa Rica. Mitch prepped the first specimen and fed it into the machine. Yawning, he dragged himself upstairs. He checked in on Clem, satisfied that she was sound asleep in his bed. Rummaging in a closet, he retrieved an extra pillow and blanket and tossed them onto the sofa in the living room.

"You're going to sleep on the couch?" Jamie asked as she came up behind him.

"Well, Clem took over my bed, so…"

"There is another option," she said suggestively. She closed the gap between them and kissed him on the lips. The kiss was unlike the last kiss they shared on an airplane; instead of exploratory and tentative, this was deep and passionate.

"That's a good option," Mitch said breathlessly, breaking the kiss briefly.

"Hmmmm…my room is right there."

"Are you…are you sure about this? 'Cause I kind of feel like I'm taking advantage of your illness somehow."

She kissed him again feverishly. "This isn't the act of a mutation; this is the act of a woman in love," she whispered. "And I don't want to die not knowing what it's like to make love with you."

He didn't require any further incentive.