"But I suppose there's a silver lining in everything: I can spend my retirement in financial ruin instead of financial ruin and federal prison." Darby flopped into his chair and closed his eyes and rubbed his temples.

A hush fell on the room, all but for the pattering of the rain against the windows.

"Maybe not," Quentin said.

Darby looked up. "'Maybe not' what?"

While Ross glowered at him, Quentin picked up the phone and punched seven numbers.

Chris was in a deep sleep when the phone rang. He caught it, but not before Wendy woke up. It was Quentin Cross. His message was terse: Meet him and Ross in the office at eight-thirty.

"It's Saturday, for God's sake." She craned her neck to see the clock. It was a little after seven. "What did he say?"

"Just that it was urgent." He got up to get dressed. "Probably another hare-brained scheme to synthesize the toxogen."

"You don't believe that. They never call on Saturdays." His face had that fistlike tightness it got when something was bothering him. "Honey, what's going on?"

She could see that he didn't want to upset her, but it was time to fess up. "I think they're firing me."

"Firing you for what?"

"For not getting a better yield."

"That's ridiculous. They can't fire you if it can't be done."

"I didn't say it can't be done. It's just that I can't do it. So they'll find somebody who can."

"They can't do that," Wendy said. Tears sprung to her eyes. Chris was a decent man and brilliant scientist whose entire professional life had been dedicated to benefiting the human race. For two years he had labored tirelessly to synthesize the stuff. If they were terminating him, it was grossly unjust.

"It's their company. They can do what they want."

"Can't you fight them? Get a lawyer?"

"It's not against the law to get rid of somebody who's not doing his job."

"But you've been doing your job. It's not your fault you can't get the goddamn stuff to yield. Is there anybody you can call? Somebody who knows new techniques?"

"I've tried them all. If it can be done, it's beyond me." He got his clothes together.

"You're the best they've got."

"Maybe that's the problem." Chris wiped the tears from her face and kissed her. Then he took his insulin shot, got dressed, and left.

Darby Pharms was located in a small complex of buildings fashioned in a red brick Tudor motif. The original building was once a private residence that had since been expanded over the years as the company grew to sixty employees, creating a series of buildings handsomely landscaped to look like a small English village.

At 8:20 Chris pulled into his slot. In the Executive area sat two cars: Ross Darby's big black Mercedes sedan and Quentin's gray 450 SL Coupe. The colors of power and wannabe power.

Chris went inside. The interior was eerily quiet, as if holding its breath. He could sense the tension from the foyer. He cut through the maze of offices. Quentin was at the door of Ross's office suite holding a coffee mug. He was dressed in jeans and a sweatshirt and looked as if he'd been up all night.

"Have a seat," Darby said as Chris entered. He was also casually dressed-a blue shirt and black V-neck sweater. His face looked ashen and haggard. From their grim appearances, Chris was certain that this was his dismissal.

Quentin began. "Chris, we called you in because, quite frankly, we have something of a problem with your work here. You have been with us for fifteen years, and in those fifteen years we counted on you-"

Chris cut him off. "Quentin, if you're firing me, please just say it and save us a lot of trouble."

Quentin's face filled with blood. "I don't like your attitude."

"And I don't like you calling me at seven o'clock on Saturday morning without explanation."

"It's about your mice," Quentin said.

"We've been through this already."

"I want Ross to hear."

Ross got up. It took him a moment to straighten up. He walked to the coffee machine, stretched a kink out of his lower lumbar, then poured himself another cup. In spite of chronic back problems, he looked good for a man over seventy. He was tall and still quite trim, and his face usually radiated with a rich, healthy luster-the product of regular games of tennis. It was easy to imagine the dashing young quarterback from Eureka. Today Ross Darby looked his age. They had probably been up for hours mulling over the terms of dismissal.

"Chris, I want to apologize for all the mystery, but I preferred to talk with you in person. Quentin told me what you said, but I'd like to hear it firsthand if you don't mind."

Chris liked Darby because he was classy at managing people. He always treated you with respect and patience, and never had to raise his voice. He made you feel that when you talked there was nothing else in the universe he wanted more to do than to listen. Unlike Quentin, he was never petty; if something bothered him, he never let on unless it was important. "As I explained, I tried to save us time by testing toxicity."

"We moved beyond animal testing over a year ago."

"I didn't want to see the animals die."

"So, for two years you played mouse doctor at our expense," Quentin said.

It was just like him to jawbone Chris about costs to impress Ross before announcing he was canned. When little men cast long shadows, you knew the sun was setting. "Yeah," Chris said.

"That's horseshit."

"Quentin, get on with it," Darby said.

Quentin removed a packet of papers and handed it to Chris. "Look familiar?"

"An inventory of some sort?" Chris said.

"That's right, and you know of what?"

Darby cut in again. "Quentin, this isn't Perry Mason."

"It's an inventory of requisitions from your lab," Quentin continued. "And maybe you can explain a few items."

"Like what?"

"Like how over a five-year period from 1980 you placed orders for 582 exotic mutant mice at $170 each-five times the next most expensive mouse, I should add-for a grand total of $98,940. I called Jackson Labs and they told me that mus musculatus sextonis stock number JR 004134 is an albino mutant Amazonian agouti-whatever the hell that is-with a lifespan of eleven months. What we'd like to know is what the hell you were doing with $100,000 worth of short-lived mutant mice."

"I was doing life-cycle studies."

"Really? For nearly one fiftieth the price you could have gotten mice with twice the life span. What the hell was the rush?"

"You're the one who insisted we couldn't depend on raw stock and needed to find a synthesis."

"Uh-huh. Then what about these chemical orders? You purchased organics that have nothing to do with apricots or any other interests of this lab. Like on September 23 five years ago, eighteen liters of acetonitrile."

"It's a solvent for extracting the toxogen out of the apricot pits."

"Is that right? Well, my chemistry's a little rusty, so I checked. And everybody and his brother said that the solvent of choice is ethanol, not acetonitrile-which, as you well know, is used in organic procedures." He adjusted his glasses, feeling very clever. "Then in December '84, seventy-five grams of L-N5 iminoethyl ornithine, and three months later a total of twenty liters of hexamethylphosphamide. And before you try and fudge up another answer, I checked and, lo and behold, nobody has a fucking clue why you'd need such fancy organics. In fact, HMPA is a goddamn carcinogenic which, by the way, cost us two thousand dollars." He slapped down the inventory. "In fact, you've been ordering some rather strange materials ever since we sent you to Papua New Guinea back in 1980. You want to tell us just what the hell you've been doing in this lab for the last seven years while nobody was looking?"