Of course, it was willful delusion on Reston’s part. Everyone at the ACF with any interest in Foundation politics knew who was most responsible for the Compound J trial: Logan and Como. It was they who’d done the important groundwork and, equally to the point, they who’d stuck by the protocol through the lean times; publicly defending it in the face of criticism that sometimes bordered on derision. If it now achieved any measure of success, there was no question they’d be the ones getting most of the credit.

Which, the rumor mill at the ACF had it, was suddenly a very distinct possibility. Specifics were lacking; few had followed the trial closely enough to know even how many patients the Compound J team had accrued, let alone the particulars of their treatment.

But all at once the tenor of comment about the protocol underwent a startling shift. Before, conventional wisdom was that the thing was a bust: there were toxicity problems, patients were being dropped from the program. Now the talk was of surprisingly positive results. Word had it that Seth Shein, no less, was talking in terms of “a breakthrough treatment.”

True to form, Shein was publicly uncommunicative. A veritable student of the art of rumor-mongering, once he’d leaked just enough to set things in motion, he pulled back, deflecting questions with what was taken as bemused innocence. “Hey, I haven’t seen any results. What d’you think, I spend my life lookin’ over those kids’ shoulders?”

But to Logan, he soon made his strategy explicit. “You’re doin’ great, unbelievable!” he put it to him a couple of days after learning of the second response. “I’d just like to see you build up the case a little bit more before we hit ’em with it.”

Logan looked quizzical. “ ‘Hit ’em’?”

“I’ve been thinkin’,” elaborated Shein, “about settin’ you up at Grand Rounds. Think you could handle that?”

Logan looked at him incredulously. The Grand Rounds presentations, held every Tuesday morning in the ACF’s cavernous main auditorium, were the most prestigious forum afforded by the Foundation; speakers were generally top scientists, both American and foreign, hoping to draw attention to major research developments.

“I’m thinkin’ after Labor Day,” added Shein. “They’ll be in a good mood from roasting their fat asses in the sun.”

“You think I’m ready for Grand Rounds?”

“Ah, bullshit,” said Shein, waving this away, “nothin’ to it.” He paused. “I’m gonna want you to go into detail about some of the responses you’ve had.”

“Both of the responses,” corrected Logan. “There’ve been only the two.”

“So far. Two outta fourteen ain’t bad. And I’m bettin’ there’ll be some more icing on that cake.”

By now, Logan knew enough not to question Shein’s uncanny intuition. And, in fact, they had a third response only a couple of days later: sweet old Mrs. Kober, whose supraclavicular node, like the malignancies of Marjorie Rhome and Hannah Dietz, had seemingly vanished.

Sabrina, who conducted the exam, brought Logan the news—along with a note from the patient.

Dr. Logan,

Don’t forget … we have a bet on the Giants versus the Cowboys next season at the Meadowlands.

Sally Kober

P.S.—Suddenly I am feeling much better about my chances of collecting. Thank you.

It was a day after that that Logan was summoned back to Larsen’s office.

“I’ve been expecting to hear from you,” began the head of the Department of Medicine, fixing him with a cool stare. “I thought it was understood, in light of our earlier conversation, that I would be kept informed of the status of your protocol.”

Logan recalled no such understanding at all. “I’m sorry, sir,” he stammered, “there must have been some sort of misunderstanding.”

“I’m sure,” said the other. “How convenient for you.”

“But we’ve done exactly as instructed.”

“You have, have you?” He arched his eyebrows, lending him a sudden resemblance to William F. Buckley. “I suppose you expect me to take your word on that?”

“Dr. Larsen, I assure you that every patient we see is made aware of the toxicities associated with this drug.”

It was true, the creatinine problem was now mentioned as a matter of course. But what Logan failed to note was that so, too, was the fact that the drug had begun showing highly impressive results.

“And, as a consequence, how many of these patients have chosen to discontinue treatment?” asked Larsen.

“None, sir.”

“None?! And you expect me to believe that you’ve told them the whole truth? What kind of fool do you take me for, Logan?”

“I’m sorry, sir, I don’t mean to imply that—”

“You’re a liar, young man!” he suddenly shouted. “I’ve known it from the first day I met you. You should never have been accepted into this program!”

But sitting there across from him, Logan felt a remarkable sense of well-being. This was the performance of a desperately insecure man, flailing about for a solution to a problem he knew was beyond his control. Larsen was aware of the growing regard for Compound J—and there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about it.

“I’m sorry you feel that way, sir,” replied Logan, “I really am.”

“Spare me your feelings,” spat back Larsen. He hesitated. What most concerned him—the responses the drug had lately elicited—was something he dared not broach. If the rumors had merit, he certainly had no intention of hearing it from this source. “You’d just better pray,” he added, “that when all is said and done, everything you’ve told me holds up.”

“Yessir,” nodded Logan, far from intimidated. His heart was soaring. He’d beaten the son of a bitch! Look at him, reduced to firing blanks!

“And that you have in no way brought disrepute upon this institution. Because there are still some of us who take things like that extremely seriously.”

“Yessir.”

Abruptly, Larsen stood up. “I really don’t think,” he said scornfully, “that you and I have anything more to say to one another.”

The fourth response came a week later: Sharon Williams, the woman whose tumor had migrated to the bone.

This one, however, was somewhat less definitive. Establishing a response against malignancies in the bone is a dicey proposition, since bone scans can take months to reflect the healing process. Rather, Logan made the judgment about Mrs. Williams based primarily on the testimony of the woman herself.

Showing up at the clinic for her exam, she was positively glowing.

“Something’s happening to me,” she announced. “It’s remarkable.”

“How do you know?” asked Logan.

“How do I know?” She put her hand on her hip and replied with exaggerated sauciness. “Honey, I know every inch of this body. I can feel it.” She paused. “Or, rather, I can’t feel it.”

“You’re saying there’s been less pain?”

She laughed. “Doctor, the pain is gone. For a year and a half, I’ve had to take codeine regularly every three hours just to keep going. But last week I stopped, and I haven’t even thought about it since.”

In the absence of the usual confirming data, Logan and Sabrina were at first hesitant to count this as a response. Yet there was another fact that went a long way toward making the case. A marker of the disease, the antigen 1Y-32, present in an overwhelming percentage of breast-cancer patients, was suddenly absent in the blood of Sharon Williams. True enough, the 1Y-32 test was itself experimental—but in this case it jibed so well with other factors that making the leap seemed reasonable.

“Besides which,” noted Logan, grinning but meaning it, “it’ll be terrific for the Grand Rounds presentation. The more variations of this disease we can claim to be getting at, the better.”

The truth was, as the big day approached, Logan’s excitement and apprehension grew apace. Some evenings, awake in bed, he saw himself the focal point of a triumph as stirring as the one in his favorite medical movie classic, The Story of Louis Pasteur; his stunned audience leaping to their feet in spontaneous tribute. But just as often, the thought of even appearing before so vast and distinguished a throng, most of them highly skeptical and some frankly hostile, filled him with dread.

Shein was naturally keyed into Logan’s mindset almost from the start. “Jeez, what the hell’s wrong with you?” he put it to him a week before the speech. “I mean, the crap you put yourself through!”

As usual, Logan wasn’t sure whether Shein’s words were meant to taunt or reassure. Probably Shein didn’t know himself.

“I know,” he conceded. “I guess it’s just nerves.”

“What’re you worried about, Logan? You got it made.”

“You keep forgetting, I’ve never done anything like this before.” He paused. “I guess I’m a little concerned that, you know, Dr. Markell is going to be there.”

“That’s right, he is.” Shein nodded thoughtfully. “I see what you’re sayin’—you’d better be absolutely fuckin’ brilliant.”

“Thanks. I needed that.”

“Christ, Logan, Markell’s nothing to worry about. Believe me, I know—no one handles him better.”

Logan was well aware of the extraordinary complexity of Shein’s relationship with the imperious head of the ACF. Though virtual opposites in manner and style, they were intellectual soulmates, sharing both a respect for talent and a contempt for those who got ahead without it. It made sense that, formerly Shein’s mentor, Markell—known in the infighting of institution politics as a stone-cold killer—had turned into his protector; the reason, for all Shein’s calculated outrageousness, his enemies couldn’t touch him.

But by the same token, free spirit that he fancied himself to be, Shein hated it that others were so aware of the fact. He chafed at being known as Markell’s boy, especially among his own people. More than once, Logan had been struck by how, out of the blue, awed and intimidated as he clearly was by Markell, Shein would make a point of slighting him.

“I’ll tell you something else,” he breezily added now, “Markell’s screwed up plenty of times himself.”

“So—what?—you’re saying he’ll understand if I’m a little shaky?”

“Did I say that?” Shein grinned. “He’s got plenty of patience for his own fuck-ups—not for yours.”

As the morning approached, Logan did what he always had when faced with a difficult challenge: he sought to overwhelm self-doubt through sheer preparation. He spent every available moment retracing the critical steps of the previous eight months; carefully reviewing his notes on the Tilley case and the articles unearthed by Sabrina that had helped them make important connections; returning to the voluminous files on the candidates for the protocol; rereading the case histories of each of the fifteen women who’d eventually been accrued; amassing the slides necessary to illustrate various aspects of the presentation.

His plan was to recount the history of the Compound J protocol as a straightforward chronological saga, explaining as best he could the factors—prior research, new data, and simple intuition—that led to certain key decisions. In this way, he’d let the suspense build. Only in the final quarter hour would he reveal the striking responses the drug had now elicited in four patients.

There was no way to guess how this would be greeted. He knew full well that everyone at the ACF had heard such claims before. Few in that audience would fail to understand that a handful of responses in a protocol setting do not automatically add up to a credible treatment approach, let alone a breakthrough. Still, the responses had been dramatic; and, more than that, the drug had apparently performed almost precisely as they’d predicted. At the very least, he felt he could make the case that Compound J was off to a flying start.

To make things easier on himself, Logan wrote out the entire speech on three-by-five cards. No sense risking an extemporaneous slip of the tongue, not with this crowd.

The process was a laborious one, consuming most of the weekend, and it was late Sunday afternoon when he laid aside what felt like a completed draft.

“What the hell,” he said aloud, heading into the kitchen for a beer. “It’s in the hands of the gods.”

Less than thirty-six hours later, he stood on the stage in the vast amphitheater, as a staff member named Follansbee offered a surprisingly breezy introduction.

“Ladies and gentleman,” he began, “today we have with us a young doctor from the Department of Medicine who, I understand, is going to address himself to the matter of whether old compounds can be taught new tricks.…”

But Logan, looking out over the crowd, heart pounding, hardly heard the words. Only perhaps a third of the plush red seats in the hall were occupied, but that meant at least four hundred people. He recognized dozens of faces—but was most conscious of the three directly in front of him in the second row center: Raymond Larsen, Allen Atlas, and Gregory Stillman.

Shein, hands in pockets, stood in the back. Sabrina, in the first row over on the left, smiled at him, then quickly averted her eyes. She’s almost as nervous as I am, he thought. And, scanning the room: At least Markell didn’t show.

“And so,” wound up Follansbee, “I give you Dr. Daniel Logan.”

Logan stepped to the podium to a smattering of applause. The shakiness he felt in his knees instantly found its way to his voice, his thank-you for the introduction registering as tremulously as that of a high-school candidate for student office.

For the first several minutes, reading from his cards, he scarcely dared to look up at his audience. But gradually, the terror began to lift, and by the time he showed his first slide—a vintage photo of Paul Ehrlich, sitting amid mounds of journals—he’d found his rhythm.

As his confidence increased, he began looking out over his audience. They were gratifyingly attentive. He noticed that Sabrina now seemed entirely at ease, his best measure of how things were going. And—another good sign—Larsen looked ready to leap onstage and disembowel him!

Kenneth Markell entered the hall midway through the presentation, as Logan was discussing a slide showing the structure of the Compound J molecule. A short man, with a fringe of white surrounding a bald pate, he had the bearing of Caesar. He didn’t bother to take a seat, merely stood in back, arms folded, listening. Seth Shein, taking his place beside him, unconsciously assumed the same posture.

By the time Logan reached his climax, even the occasional bout of coughing in the hall had ceased. “I want to tell you about one of the patients on the protocol,” he said.

He nodded toward the projectionist, and the slide showing Marjorie Rhome’s initial X ray appeared on the screen. “This was what we saw when this patient came onto the protocol.”

He briefly discussed her case before nodding to the projectionist again. “This is the same patient’s chest X ray after eight cycles of treatment with Compound J.”

Logan thought—or was it only his willful imagination?—that there was a murmur in the hall. He paused a moment. “That was only our first response. It has been followed by three others.”

For presentation purposes, these cases were less dramatic; he had no slides with which to illustrate them. In fact, the final response of which he spoke—Sharon Williams’s—might have been considered suspect. But if he’d lost any significant segment of the crowd, Logan, his earlier anxiety forgotten, didn’t notice.

When, moments later, he concluded the speech, it was to highly respectful applause.

Logan acknowledged this with a broad, unaffected smile. But when he glanced down at the second row, his apprehension returned with a rush. The three of them were sitting there, arms folded. And when Logan caught his eye, Stillman suddenly extended an arm, pointing.

Stillman mouthed the words so clearly, it was as if Logan could hear them: “Toxicity, asshole! What about toxicity?”