Due Preparations for the Plague. Janette Turner Hospital

ends, the famine ends, the suffering ends, and the whole world loves your little son.’

      “‘What’s the catch?’ bin Laden wants to know.

      “‘The catch is, we film on location in Afghanistan.’”

      And so it goes, and so it goes.

      Even by candlelight, there are men who murmur comments into handheld dictaphones. But stand-up comics are like jesters in the court of medieval kings. They can take liberties. They can get away with murder, so to speak. They can make fools of those who walk in the corridors of power, and the powerful love them for it. The powerful court them. They offer proposals and enticements. They seek occasions to compile a photographic dossier in case the need for future blackmail should arise.

      “My dear,” a silver-haired gentleman says, stroking Samantha’s thigh. “What a wickedly delicious mind you have. May I buy you a drink?”

      (Will you walk into my parlor? says the spider to the fly.

      There’s a microphone behind me and a hidden camera eye.)

      “You may buy me anything you please,” Samantha says, low and sultry, making sheep’s eyes and sitting on his lap.

      “Excuse me,” some clumsy lout says, lurching against her. She is doused in ice cubes and scotch, and the drunken bungler catches hold of her wrist.

      “Sam,” he says, low and intense, “are you out of your mind?”

      “Jacob,” she murmurs, her lips against his ear, “mind your own damn business.”

      “I’m minding it,” he whispers.

      “You are sabotaging weeks of preparation.”

      “I’m saving your skin. I’ll meet you out on the street in fifteen minutes. Be there.” Samantha shakes her head in a gesture of incredulity. “Can you believe this?” she says to the silver-haired gentleman, brushing scotch from her bag-lady shirt. “I’m soaked. I’ll have to go change.”

3. Phoenix One, Phoenix Two

      “You’re sailing way too close to the wind, Sam. It’s stupid and it’s dangerous.”

      “Part of the fallout, isn’t it? We’re all addicted to risk.”

      “Is that so?” Jacob lines up cardboard drink coasters, three round ones on his left, two diamond-shaped ones on his right. He moves a round one from the left side to the right and places it between the two diamonds. He frowns, considering this equation, then moves it back. The tavern they are in is small and dimly lit, which suits them. Ironically, they seem to need confined spaces.

      “It’s well known,” Samantha says flippantly. She is at pains to be flippant with Jacob, to stop herself sliding into him. Sometimes their edges match so exactly that a waiter will bring them only one drink. Nutrient fusion, Jacob calls it. No; ego confusion, Sam insists. Phoenix One and Phoenix Two are the names they are known by in their circle—sometimes for particular kinds of communication, sometimes for a grim private joke—but they are Siamesed from the same charcoal pit, two barbecued peas in a pod. Their circle is small and exclusive. The members call themselves the Phoenix Club, and they mostly make contact via the Web.

      “Risk addiction’s commonplace for our lot,” Samantha says. “For all survivors. Earthquake survivors, rape survivors, whatever. There’s a special section in bookstores now: survival lit. Articles all over the place. You must have read some.”

      “Not my cup of tea.”

      “Well, I’m telling you, whether you want to know about it or not, risk addiction’s part of the syndrome. There’s statistical evidence, conferences, papers, proceedings, God knows what. Interesting to speculate on the reasons, don’t you think? And if you want to know why I’m babbling on like this, it’s because that disapproving look of yours upsets me.”

      “There are certain kinds of risk that you don’t have the right to take.”

      “Why not?”

      “Because they put all of us in greater jeopardy, that’s why.”

      “We’re all in perpetual jeopardy anyway. Don’t we take that as a given?”

      “That’s why we have a certain understanding.”

      “Right,” Samantha snaps. “We understand that all of us manage in whatever way we can and we don’t sit in judgment on each other. I don’t judge, you don’t judge, he doesn’t judge, we don’t judge—”

      “But we do keep an eye out for each other. That’s part of the deal.” He touches Samantha’s cheek. “You’re manic,” he says uneasily. “What are you on?”

      “On getting somewhere. On the trail getting hot. On nailing down answers.”

      “Sam, Sam. There aren’t any answers. Or none that will make the slightest difference.”

      “It’s amazing what I’m learning from next-of-kin. It’s amazing what the website brings in.”

      “You’re burning yourself up.”

      “I’m on fire,” she acknowledges, “but I’m learning plenty. I’m doing this for the future. I’m doing this for the historical record. As well as for my thesis in American history, don’t forget. It’s like a map coming into focus.”

      “The Phoenix Club’s one thing. We need each other. It helps, keeping contact, it helps us all. But you’re casting your net too wide. You’re drawing dangerous attention.”

      “I need to draw fire. I know exactly what I’m doing and I’m careful.”

      “You’re reckless.” He clenches his hands together. He leans across the table, his forearms over the line-up of coasters. He looks like a gambler shielding a spread of cards. “We need each other to survive, Sam. We need each other too much. If something happened to you—”

      “It won’t.”

      “If something did—”

      “What can happen to someone who’s indifferent to what happens?”

      “Enough.”

      “We’re immune to harm, Jacob, or we wouldn’t be here. You can’t snuff a phoenix out.”

      “Unfortunately, you can.” He pulls at his fingers and the knuckles make an ominous sound. He looks more ravaged than usual. “I went to see Cassie yesterday.”

      “Ah,” Samantha says uneasily. “How is she?”

      “Getting worse, I think.”

      “So that’s what all this is about.”

      “Not only that.”

      Jacob blinks, slowly and heavily. He makes Samantha think of an owl and the thought trips a nervous tic in her hand. Her thumb, of its own free will, does a little series of calisthenics. “You had that look on your face,” she says, “when the news broke—”

      “Why are you whispering? I can’t hear you.”

      “You were sitting on the cot across from me. In Germany. When we watched the plane go up. That’s how you looked.”

      “Stop it, Sam.”

      She hasn’t meant to go there, but all roads lead back to the airstrip on the TV screen.

      Jacob turns a coaster around and around in his hands.

      The cots and the blankets smell musty to Samantha. They must have been pulled out of storage in a damp basement. This must have been hurriedly done. There is a boy next to Samantha sucking a blanket, there is another boy across from her, an older boy whose eyelids droop and who plays with the