Michael Palmer - The fifth vial

St. Pierre did not respond right away. When she did, she spoke firmly.

"Joseph, I hope you really do know and appreciate how tolerant and patient Whitestone has been with you."

"I do."

"We own world rights to Sarah-nine and anything else that comes out of this laboratory, yet we have allowed you to keep to yourself the methods and cell lines that you use. We know that most of the vats of yeast in your lab are not used in the production of the drug."

"And I am grateful for th — "

"Joseph, please. Listen to me. The patience of the development people and board of directors at Whitestone is running very thin. Our protocols have been limited by the fact that all of the Saral-nine we get for our research here and in Europe comes from you. You can say that you are supplying the drug fast enough, but that is simply not so. Every day of delay in getting this wonderful treatment onto the world market translates into millions of dollars lost. I know that you don't care a bit about money, but think of the lives that are lost as well. We need to complete the circle, Joseph. We need the microbes and the source of the recombitant DNA, and we need your notes so that we can finish our clinical testing and begin mass production. We promise that you will get full credit for having created Sarah-nine."

"You know that doesn't matter to me."

"Joseph, I don't really know what matters to you anymore. If what matters to you is getting the drug onto the market where it can help the many, many people who need it, then you need to take some action. It boils down to this. You want something more from Whitestone, and we wish something more from you."

"Be specific, please."

"Okay. Provided the widow of the donor of your lung approves, we will arrange for you to fly to Amritsar to visit her, and possibly her two children as well."

"And me?"

"Upon our return from India, we shall fly a research team down here from England along with the equipment to bring your cell line back to our facility there. While they are here, you must go through your notebooks with them — not the dummy ones I know you have so meticulously created, just the real ones. We have paid and paid handsomely for this research, and it is time that we became the proprietors of it."

"You may disagree, Elizabeth, but I believe strongly that the secrecy I have maintained around my work is both justified and in everyone's best interest. Since I have been solely in charge, things have been done my way, without the confusion of multiple captains, and also without the danger of espionage from the pharmaceutical industry. But I agree with you that it is time for the secrecy to end."

"So we have a deal, then?"

"We have a deal."

"Thank you, dear Joseph. On behalf of the world, thank you."

St. Pierre embraced him, then brought his lips to hers and kissed him briefly but tenderly.

"We have been through a lot together," he said.

"The end to this phase of our work is near. You should be very proud of what you have accomplished. I know that I am. Now it's time for me to get a little rest. I am on the schedule at the clinic today. And so, as a matter of fact, are you."

"I'll be ready," Anson said, taking a deep, delicious breath.

St. Pierre returned to her quarters, a single room and shower down the covered corridor from Anson's suite. She was tiring of the small space and the mold that continually reappeared on the bathroom tile, and she stayed there as little as possible, preferring her elegant house, high on a verdant hill overlooking Yaounde. Whether she stayed in Cameroon or not after the Guardiansuse for Anson was done was still uncertain. Either way, she was due a bonus that would make her a wealthy woman, and stock options in the new Whitestone pharmaceutical company that would make her positively rich. Not bad for a few years work baby-sitting an eccentric, mistrusting genius.

Using a private line, she called a number in London.

"The deal's been made," she told an answering machine. "We bring him to India to visit the family, and he sits down with our people for the final transfer of his notebooks and cell cultures. I believe him. He's always kept to his word, and there's nothing in it for him financially that would cause him to hold back on us. Not that he cares about money, but the stock options he'll get in Whitestone Pharmaceuticals should be enough to keep this place functioning indefinitely.

"It has been a very long haul, but it is almost over. My biggest error when I started here was that I just never anticipated the depth of the man's paranoia or the extent to which he would go to protect his work from the very people who were funding it. It is good that I have found ways to work around his madness and to encourage his genius. Try to push my darling Joseph, and he is just as likely as anything to push right back."

Natalie wasn't going to make it through the session and she knew it. It was stupid to have agreed to get back into physical and pulmonary therapy so soon after the ordeal of the fire. She checked the elapsed time on the treadmill clock and then glanced up at the one on the wall just in case the electronics had failed. Seventeen minutes at zero incline. This is bullshit, she thought. There was no sense in prolonging the charade. Her lung wasn't working well. It was as simple as that. Rachel French could talk all she wanted to about healing burns and recovery of function, but it just wasn't going to happen.

Oh sure, Lefty, you're going to be pitching real good again before you know it — just as soon as that ol' missing arm of yours regenerates.

"Come on, Nat," her therapist urged. "Five more minutes. You're doing great."

"I'm doing sucky, and you know it."

"You're wrong. The pulmonary people tell me that your function tests have largely stabilized, and that there should be steady improvement in them for some time to come."

"Nobody in medicine ever predicts improvement," Natalie snapped, pausing to get an extra breath. "In fact they usually go…out of their way to predict no improvement. That way they'll either look smart and tuned in…or they'll look like heroes when things do get better."

"You know, you're not going to help yourself very much thinking negatively all the time."

"Correction," Natalie said, flicking off the power. "I'm not going to help myself at all…Thanks for your time…I'll call when I feel ready to come back."

She snatched up her warm-up towel and stormed from the unit, sensing the woman might actually be coming after her. She knew she was acting like a jerk, but in truth, she really didn't care. She had accepted the tragic loss of her lung with grace and spirit, and a positive philosophy. But at the moment, even though her mother and niece were alive because of her, and cards were continuing to flood in, and testimonials were being planned, there simply didn't seem to be enough grace or spirit remaining to undo what had been done.

She sped home, half hoping that a cop would have the temerity and bad fortune to try to ticket her. Perhaps with time, her feelings of despair and self-pity would yield to a renewed sense of purpose and perspective. Meanwhile, somewhere, some mathematician who probably couldn't get a job teaching in junior high was preparing to pull out his calculator to determine her lung allocation score.

Let's see, plus twenty two and she limps along indefinitely, stopping every few feet to catch her breath. Plus twenty-eight and she gets to wait on tenterhooks for the privilege of taking poison that will blot out her immune system, and make riding in a public elevator a potentially lethal off air…