12:55 AM

AN airtight submarine door led from the changing room into the biohazard zone. Kit turned the four-spoked wheel and opened the door. He had been inside the laboratory before it was commissioned, when there were no dangerous viruses present, but he had never entered a live BSL4 facility—he was not trained. Feeling that he was taking his life in his hands, he stepped through the doorway into the shower room. Nigel followed him, carrying Eltons burgundy briefcase. Elton and Daisy were waiting outside in the van.

Kit closed the door behind them. The doors were electronically linked so that the next would not open until the last was shut. His ears popped. Air pressure was reduced in stages as you entered BSL4, so that any air leaks were inward, preventing the escape of dangerous agents.

They passed through another doorway, into a room where blue plastic space suits hung from hooks. Kit took off his shoes. "Find one your size and get into it," he said to Nigel. "We've got to shortcut the safety precautions."

"I don't like the sound of that."

Kit did not either, but they had no choice. "The normal procedure is too long," he said. "You have to take off all your clothes, including underwear, even your jewelry, then put on surgical scrubs, before you suit up." He took a suit off a hook and began to climb into it. "Corning out takes even longer. You have to shower in your suit, first with a decontamination solution, then with water, on a predetermined cycle that takes five minutes. Then you take off the suit and your scrubs and shower naked for five minutes. You clean your nails, blow your nose, clear your throat and spit. Then you get dressed. If we do all that, half the Inverburn police could be here by the time we get out. We'll skip the showers, take off our suits, and run."

Nigel was appalled. "How dangerous is it?"

"Like driving your car at a hundred and thirty miles an hour—it might kill you, but it probably won't, so long as you don't make a habit of it. Hurry up, get a damn suit on." Kit closed his helmet. The plastic faceplate gave slightly distorted vision. He closed the diagonal zip across the front of the suit, then helped Nigel.

He decided they could do without the usual surgical gloves. He used a roll of duct tape to attach the suit gauntlets to the rigid circular wrists of Nigel's suit, then got Nigel to do the same for him.

From the suit room they stepped into the decontamination shower, a cubicle with spray faucets on all sides as well as above. They felt a further drop in air pressure—twenty-five or fifty pascals from one room to the next, Kit recalled. From the shower they entered the lab proper.

Kit suffered a moment of pure fear. There was something in the air here that could kill him. All his glib talk about shortcutting safety precautions and driving at a hundred and thirty now seemed foolhardy. I could die, he thought. I could catch a disease and suffer a hemorrhage so bad the blood would come out of my ears and eyes and my penis. What am I doing here? How could I be so stupid?

He breathed slowly and made himself calm. You're not exposed to the atmosphere here in the lab; you'll be breathing pure air from outside, he told himself. No virus can penetrate this suit. You're a lot safer from infection than you would be in economy class on a packed 747 to Orlando. Get a grip.

Curly yellow air hoses dangled from the ceiling. Kit grabbed one and connected it to the inlet on Nigel's belt and saw Nigel's suit begin to inflate. He did the same for himself and heard the inward rush of air. His terror abated.

A row of rubber boots stood by the door, but Kit ignored them. Their main purpose was to protect the feet of the suits and prevent them wearing out.

He surveyed the lab, getting his bearings, trying to forget the danger and concentrate on what he had to do. The place had a shiny look due to the epoxy paint used to make the walls airtight. Microscopes and computer workstations stood on stainless-steel benches. There was a fax machine for sending your notes out—paper could not be taken into the showers or passed through the autoclaves. Kit noted fridges for storing samples, biosafety cabinets for handling hazardous materials, and a rack of rabbit cages under a clear plastic cover. The red light over the door would flash when the phone rang, as it was difficult to hear inside the suits. The blue light would warn of an emergency. Closed-circuit television cameras covered every corner of the room.

Kit pointed to a door. "I think the vault is through there." He crossed the room, his air hose extending as he moved. He opened the door on a room no bigger than a closet, containing an upright refrigerator with a keypad combination lock. The LED keys were scrambled, so that the order of numbers in the squares was different every time. This made it impossible to figure out the code by watching someone's fingers. But Kit had installed the lock, so he knew the combination—unless it had been changed.

He keyed the numbers and pulled the handle.

The door opened.

Nigel looked over his shoulder.

Measured doses of the precious antiviral drug were kept in disposable syringes, ready for use. The syringes were packaged in small cardboard boxes. Kit pointed to the shelf. He raised his voice so that Nigel could hear him through the suit. "This is the drug."

Nigel said, "I don't want the drug."

Kit wondered if he had misheard. "What?" he shouted.

"I don't want the drug."

Kit was astounded. "What are you talking about? Why are we here?"

Nigel did not respond.

On the second shelf were samples of various viruses ready to be used to infect laboratory animals. Nigel looked carefully at the labels, then selected a sample of Madoba-2.

Kit said, "What the hell do you want that for?"

Without answering, Nigel took all the remaining samples of the same virus from the shelf, twelve boxes altogether.

One was enough to kill someone. Twelve could start an epidemic. Kit would have been reluctant to touch the boxes, even wearing a biohazard suit. But what was Nigel up to?

Kit said, "I thought you were working for one of the pharmaceutical giants."

"I know."

Nigel could afford to pay Kit three hundred thousand pounds for tonight's work. Kit did not know what Elton and Daisy were getting but, even if it were a smaller fee, Nigel had to be spending something like half a million. To make that worth his whil............