Sabrina had always been good at keeping her feelings under wraps and she gave John Reston no reason to suspect she’d opposed his involvement with the project. Her philosophy on human relations was simple: Don’t go looking for problems, resist the impulse to make them. In scientific collaboration, especially, team harmony is essential—even, if as is often the case, it is forced or artificial.

“Give him the benefit of the doubt, can’t you?” Logan had urged. “Give me the benefit of the doubt.” And that, finally, was what she’d decided to do.

By now, even she was sure that was the right course. In the couple of days since Logan’s departure, her ill will had completely dissipated. Working with Reston on the protocol proposal, spending much of that Saturday hunched together over her computer, she found him every bit as bright as advertised; and what she had before taken as self-centeredness increasingly seemed nothing more than garden-variety masculine insecurity; the kind that, taken in the right frame of mind, can actually be endearing.

What mattered was they were so obviously on the same wavelength. Given the severe handicaps under which the team would be operating—their youth, the fact that Compound J had failed so dismally in AIDS trials, the likelihood of serious opposition—the proposal had to be close to flawless. The distinctions between this protocol and all that had come before had to be meticulously spelled out, the case for its likely success vigorously and creatively argued.

Like Logan, Sabrina had had the basic arguments for Compound J down pat for weeks. But it was only now, with Reston manning the keyboard, that she saw them being marshaled for maximum effect. He was a gifted editor—and in a field where such a skill is rare. Sabrina knew that Logan had been right: Reston’s presence could be crucial to the eventual outcome.

By midafternoon they had completed a rough draft of the introduction to the proposal, six pages’ worth.

“You are excellent with words, Reston,” she said, reading it over. “You make everything so clear.”

He smiled up at her. “Coming from you, I appreciate that.”

“From the way it sounds, who would not wish to support such a protocol?”

“It’s called piling on the bull. Now we get to the hard part—the particulars.” He paused. “Say, got any liquor around here?”

She nodded. “But I do prefer not drinking and working at the same time.”

“I figured maybe it was time for a break.”

“Why? The sooner we start, the faster we will end, no?”

Reston laughed. “I swear, sometimes you talk like someone in a spaghetti western.”

“I do not know what this is.”

“Don’t worry about it, it’s great.” He smiled. “C’mon, just a glass of wine?”

She shook her head. “After.”

“Look, I gotta tell you, I’ve got an agenda. There’s a good chance we’re going to have a serious argument in a few minutes, and I was hoping to dull your mind so you won’t win quite so easily.”

She suppressed a smile. “Oh, yes? What kind of argument?”

“Before we go much further, we’re going to have to discuss patient eligibility for this protocol. I have a pretty good idea where both you and Logan stand on this.”

Sabrina was taken aback. The question of how relatively sick or well a patient ought to be to qualify for such a protocol was absolutely fundamental. She’d simply taken it for granted that it was something on which they’d all see eye to eye.

To the outsider a seemingly straightforward medical question, in fact the matter of patient eligibility is also a political, even a moral, decision. Like edgy speculators in real estate or finance, many ambitious researchers will try to secure an edge in advance, limiting their treatment protocols to patients whose relative good health going in vastly increases the odds of a high success rate.

Sabrina paused a moment before responding. “Where do I stand?” she asked, betraying nothing. “This is something I have not even decided.”

“I’d guess you’d want patients at fifty to sixty percent on the Karnovsky Scale.” The reference was to the standard shorthand measure of a cancer patient’s condition. Ninety percent or above means close to fully functional; thirty percent, bed bound; ten percent, moribund. At fifty to sixty percent, a patient would most likely be in decline; still ambulatory, but easily fatigued and steadily losing weight.

She couldn’t argue. That was precisely the sample that would accurately gauge Compound J’s effectiveness. “And you would want something higher? Sixty to seventy?”

“Eighty-five and above.”

She snorted. “These people are almost well already. These people you can take out dancing. Or”—she strained to come up with something appropriately outrageous—“watch them play American football!”

“What’s wrong with that? Damn good game.”

Sabrina felt herself flushing. Eminently reasonable herself, she was always at a loss in the face of what she took to be lunacy. “Listen to me, Reston, do you not believe in this compound? Logan and me, we do. Very much.”

“You understand all our careers are on the line here? You DO understand that?”

“And a trial with such a bias? This will help your career?”

“Don’t exaggerate, these women are sick with breast cancer.”

Her rising contempt was hard to hide. “Such a proposal”—she shook her head—“when the data comes out they will laugh. And they will be right.”

“Think of it as a negotiating position. We can drop down to eighty percent, maybe even a little lower.”

“We should not discuss this now. We will all talk when Logan has returned.”

Turning her back to him, she worked to regain control.

“What should we talk about, then?”

“I do not know.”

“Is there an Italian version of the expression beautiful when mad?”

“What?”

“There should be.”

Suddenly, incomprehensibly, she felt his arms around her waist, his breath against her neck.

“John, what are you doing?”

He didn’t move. “I guess this isn’t the greatest time to try this, huh?”

“You STOP. Right now!”

“But you look so good, I can’t resist. I’ve been thinking about it all day.”

She twisted her upper body, trying to pull away.

“Hey, take it easy.” He kissed her neck. She could feel his crotch pressing against her. “C’mon, Sabrina, what’s Logan got that I don’t?”

“Bastardo! Figlio di puttana!”

With a violent lurch, she wrenched herself free.

He held up his hands in a gesture of uncomprehending innocence, like a basketball player unjustly charged with a foul. “You’re not interested, fine. It was worth a try.”

“You get out, Reston. Right now!”

“C’mon. don’t be stupid. Let’s get back to work.”

“You get out NOW.”

Never had he heard any words spoken more coldly.

“Look, I’m only human. It won’t happen again.” But already he was reaching to a nearby chair for his down jacket. “I really mean it, Sabrina, I’m sorry.”

He zipped the jacket closed and took a few steps toward the door. “Please, let’s just keep this in perspective, all right? And to ourselves.”

Before the conference was half over, Logan had decided it was impossible to compete with Shein’s private life. He would save the subject of Compound J—and the forthcoming protocol proposal—for the trip home.

Yet two hours into the return flight, he was still trying to find an opening. To his frustration, if not his surprise, once again he was the captive audience, forced to listen to the particulars of Shein’s latest escapade. It seemed things had worked out well with Christina after all. Though she had persisted in refusing to listen to reason on the probabilities of HIV transmission, she’d revealed a delightful and unexpected kinky streak: they’d spent most of their last afternoon together reading aloud pornographic letters from back issues of Penthouse. “A terrific young woman!”

Now, his tale complete, the scientist appeared to be dozing contentedly.

“Dr. Shein, is there any particular aspect of the conference you’d like to discuss? I took extensive notes.”

“Later.”

He hesitated. “I had quite a particularly interesting experience when I went to the place where Paul Ehrlich once worked.”

Shein didn’t so much as open an eye. “I know about that lab. They’re not doing anything worth wasting your breath on.”

“It has nothing to do with that. I went into the basement and ran across some equipment. Ancient stuff. I have a pretty good idea it’s from Paul Ehrlich’s own lab.”

He sat up and looked at Logan in genuine surprise. “What the hell were you doing in the goddamn basement?”

“Well, see—”

“Take anything? Get any souvenirs?”

Flustered, Logan reached into his inside jacket pocket for the sheet of paper. “This.”

“Thattaboy.” He reached out a hand for it. “Schmuck, don’t you know I could have you arrested?”

Putting on his reading glasses, Shein looked it over quickly.

“I found it in a crate of old chemical bottles. As packing.”

“And?”

“Well, I thought it was pretty interesting.”

“Why? Some scribbling on an old scrap of paper?”

“You’re right. But if you look at it closely …”

Shein shot him a hard look. “Logan, when the hell you gonna come clean? You and I both know this is an early version of the chemical structure you and the Italian babe have been looking at.”

Now that the moment had presented itself, Logan found himself completely unprepared for it. “That’s right,” he acknowledged.

“What do the words say?”

“The words?” He looked at the page as if for the first time. “You want a translation?”

“Yes, Logan, I believe that’s what they call it.”

“Well”—he hesitated. “Basically, it just describes the compound in the picture.”

“A polysulfonated aromatic.”

“But the language is strange, a bit stilted. I was thinking it might’ve been written by one of Ehrlich’s Japanese researchers as part of some kind of journal—”

Shein brushed this aside. “Deal in facts, Logan. What does this little find of yours mean?” He waved the paper aloft. “If anything.”

“Well”—he paused—“I think it’s pretty meaningful. I mean, we’d read that this compound may have originated in Germany, way back when. It’s fun to find what seems like direct confirmation.”

“So which is it, Logan—meaningful or fun? You’re a scientist, they’re not the same.”

Logan looked crestfallen. “No, I suppose it doesn’t mean much—not in scientific terms.”

“All right. You want fun, go body surfing. Or go fuck something.” He paused. “Now, we got time to kill: I want the whole story of what the hell you’ve been up to. Every detail.”

So over the next couple of hours he told it, starting with Larry Tilley’s appearance in the examining room. Shein sometimes seemed impatient—cutting into the narrative with a sharp comment or a challenging question—but his interest never wavered.

“Compound J for breast cancer?” he said at the end. “Well, it’s a novel notion, I gotta give you that. Where do you stand now?”

“I’m hoping Sabrina and Reston will have something on paper when we get back.”

“So it’s just you three?” His tone was ominously noncommittal.

“So far.”

Closing his eyes again, he settled back in his seat. “Sounds like a pretty involved way to set up a ménage à trois, if that’s what you’re after.”

Logan’s reaction was sharper than he intended. “Look, Dr. Shein, I don’t need to hear that. We’ve put a lot of time into this project. We think it has real potential.”

Surprised, Shein opened his eyes and shrugged—as close as he knew how to come to an apology. “Oh, excuse me, you didn’t say you were shtupping her. Why the hell are you always less open with me than the other way around?”

“I’m just trying to tell you how much—”

But Shein cut him off with a consoling squeeze on his arm. “It’s a good idea. I’m impressed. Of course, I’ll wanna see your data. I’ll wanna see your proposal.”

“So you’re interested? You’ll help us?” asked Logan, flabbergasted.

“Why do you think I took you along on this goddamn trip?”