"So it was they who recruited Walter Osgood. Was he just a pawn in this affair?"

"I'm afraid so. We know that he wasn't extorted but did it on his own free will. He had both the background to pull it off and some very specific needs that motivated him. As I think you know, he trained in microbiology, so it wasn't difficult for him to requisition the MRSA from the CDC and the amoeba from National Culture. He had a little private lab where he cooked up what turns out to be a pretty good bioterrorism agent, at least that's what our consults have been telling us. He got the MRSA to invade the amoeba, proliferate, and then he got the amoeba to encyst. Once he got the amoeba to form cysts, which is apparently easy, he could dry the cysts to form an airborne infectious agent. Perhaps the cleverest part, he could use the cysts to flood an OR at the moment when patients with anesthesia with endotracheal tubes are about to be awakened. Timing was critical, and it didn't work a hundred percent of the time, but as Osgood became more and more familiar with particular surgeons and the lengths of particular procedures, he got better and better."

"Sounds like you have all these terms and concepts down pat," Laurie said.

"On a case like this, I needed to be prepared for the sake of the prosecutors. All the arraignments were this morning."

"What were Walter Osgood's needs you mentioned?"

"He had a son who came down with a very severe form of some sort of cancer. The only treatment was deemed experimental, and the Angels Healthcare employees' health insurance company would not pay. Walter had been paying on his own. The involved pharmaceutical company had been charging him twenty thousand a month. Can you believe it?"

"You certainly have learned a lot in a few days."

"It's a hot case, as you can well imagine. I'm lucky the FBI got into it big-time. They have been carrying the ball. The lobbyist organization is in Washington, D.C., as you might imagine."

"So, in a very real way, Angels Healthcare has been subverted for the last number of months."

"That's a good way to describe it. But they have not been lily-white by any stretch of the imagination."

"I should say!" Laurie agreed. "Even if they didn't know the MRSA was being deliberately spread, they kept on doing surgery, even though people kept dying."

"They are guilty of a little more than that in these days of Sarbanes-Oxley. This part of the case is being handled by the SEC investigators. Once Angels Healthcare got into financial difficulty with their cash flow, they were required by law to have conveyed the information to the SEC so investors could protect themselves, especially if there was an imminent IPO. And this isn't the kind of thing you get slapped on the wrist for and told you are bad. Nowadays, this kind of oversight means big fines and stiff prison sentences. The government is intent on making examples of these white-collar criminals, because it is the little guy who is always hurt."

"We've all heard of some notorious cases over the last couple of years," Laurie said.

"That's an understatement," Lou said. "I'm ninety-nine-point-nine percent sure that all the Angels Healthcare principals will be able to spend some time with those more famous brethren. The CEO, CFO, and COO have all been arrested and arraigned. Two posted very high bail, but the third couldn't."

"What if they didn't know they were supposed to file when their cash flow fell?"

"Ignorance of the law is not an excuse," Lou said. "At the same time, they knew. Except for the CEO, they are experienced businesspeople, and the CEO had recently been through business school. They all knew what they should have done. In fact, the reason Paul Yang and his secretary, Amy Lucas, were killed, as near as we can tell, is because Paul wanted to file the necessary paperwork and the others put pressure on him not to do it. That's serious business."

"Have the Angels Healthcare executives also been charged with murder?" Laurie asked with shock.

"No. We were able to learn through Freddie Capuso, who has copped a plea, that the two killings and your being put in jeopardy was from the civilian guy on the boat, Michael Calabrese."

"I remember your mentioning him. What was his role?"

"He used to be married to the CEO, Angela Dawson, and even had a child with her. In the past, he was an investment banker with Morgan Stanley but left because of the opportunity to invest all the racketeering and drug money Vinnie Dominick controlled. He was, in essence, a professional money launderer. On top of that, he's going to be tried for murder."

"God, what a mess," Laurie said.

"In a very real way, we owe you for breaking the case or, more accurately, breaking the cases. If it hadn't been for you, all these people would be still carrying on."

"I don't think I deserve the credit," Laurie said. "I'm afraid my motivations were to get Jack to postpone his surgery, so the rest is fallout."

Lou smiled. He didn't agree but wasn't going to argue.

"What has Walter Osgood been charged with?" Laurie asked.

"Haven't you heard?"

"Heard what?"

"Walter Osgood committed suicide yesterday."

"Good grief," Laurie said.

"His son, whom he'd been trying to raise the money for, died on Saturday. Osgood had a lot of reasons to be depressed."

"It's a multilayered tragedy for everyone involved."

"I'll tell you what it is," Jack said, speaking up for the first time. "It's equivalent to the adage in politics that power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. The difference is that with medicine it's money, not power."

CHET McGOVERN PRESSED his nose against the bus's window and looked across the East River at LaGuardia Airport. He was close enough to see individual windows on the jetliners as they waited to take off. He was close, but in another way he was far because Chet was on a New York City bus heading across a long two-lane bridge that not only had he never seen but he never knew even existed. Having lived in the city for fifteen years, he thought he was familiar with it, but here he was on a bridge every bit as long as the mighty George Washington, and it was his first contact, and he hoped his last. The bridge led from the borough of Queens to Rikers Island, the largest penal institution in the world. As a metaphor for incarceration, Rikers Island was a long way from its neighbor, LaGuardia Airport, which, like any airport, was a contrasting icon for freedom.

Chet's morning had started early in the courthouse. Although he had had significant experience testifying during many trials involving all manner of death, he'd had little other contact with the courts, and that morning, he'd had to face a steep learning curve. Over the Easter weekend, he'd fretted over the news that had been in the Times concerning Angels Healthcare and its CEO and founder, Angela Dawson. She, her chief financial officer, and her chief operating officer had been arrested for an astounding array of charges, including various conspiracies, a number of different categories of fraud, money laundering, violations of the Patriot Act, and violation of Sarbanes-Oxley. An even more serious charge of accessory to depraved-heart murder had been quickly dropped.

Chet had first been angry. Here was a woman who'd impressed and charmed him into going to frivolous lengths to spend a little time with her and to get to know her, not to mention the money he'd spent on her, and now, after all the effort, he learns from a newspaper that she's a criminal. For him, it had been yet another reminder that women, like his old college girlfriend, cannot be trusted, and keeping them at arm's length represented an act of self-preservation.

Yet by late Easter Sunday, Chet's initial response had mellowed enough for him to question the charges, since they hardly fit the mental and emotional image he'd begun to construct of Angela Dawson. He also reminded himself of a basic tenet of American jurisprudence: namely, that people are innocent until proven guilty. It was at that point that another fact had begun to bother him: All three individuals had been offered bail, but only two had posted it. Angela Dawson had not done so, and the reason given was that she'd consumed all her equity in trying to prop up her floundering company.