"Excuse me, sir—" Claudine began.

"I have meeting with your bosses," Dragovic said in a deep, sharp, slightly accented voice, never slowing or bothering even to look at her.

Claudine glanced down at her schedule book. "I have nothing about a meeting here."

"That is because I call meeting, sweetheart."

Dragovic kept moving. No hesitation—he seemed to know exactly where he was going, striding down the hallway toward the boardroom as if he owned the place.

"I'm not your sweetheart," Claudine said in a low voice.

"Call security," Nadia said.

Claudine shrugged. "What's the point? Nobody ever objects when he busts in."

Nadia watched Dragovic's back, furious. Where did he get off bulling his way in here like this? She was tempted to follow him and see if she could eavesdrop on this meeting. But that could be risky. If she got caught it might mean a one-way ticket back to the sidewalk.

Taking a deep breath, Nadia told herself she was not going to let this ruin her big day. She headed directly for the center of the GEM offices where the stairs down to the research level were located. The company leased two floors in this building: the upper housed most of the corporate business, marketing, and sales offices; the basic research department—Dr. Monnet's baby—was on the lower level and, for security reasons, could be reached only through the corporate floor. The elevator did not make that stop.

She ran her ID card through the magnetic swipe reader and heard the lock click open. She hurried down the stairs and waved to some of the techs and programmers on the way to her office. Once there, she stepped inside, slipped into a white lab coat, then headed for the coffeepot.

Nadia noticed her hand trembling as she poured herself a cup. Too much caffeine, or still-simmering anger at Milos Dragovic?

… That is because I call meeting, sweetheart.…

The arrogance. What kind of power could he have over the GEM officers? She'd give anything to know what was happening in that conference room now.

5

"I do not want excuses!" Milos Dragovic shouted, slamming his hand on the table. He noted with satisfaction how Garrison and Edwards jumped. Monnet, the prick, simply pursed his lips, like he had a sour taste in his mouth. "I want my shipment and I want it now!"

Milos stared down at the three principals of GEM Pharma across the mahogany conference table from him. He knew all about these Harvard graduates: Garrison, Edwards, and Monnet had got together a dozen years ago and started the company. G-E-M—their initials. Cute.

To Dragovic's left sat Kent Garrison, the chubby, red-haired, perpetually wrinkled MBA who oversaw the day-to-day business. Next to him was Brad Edwards, the dark, slim, rich, pretty-boy lawyer who had put up much of the firm's start-up capital; he ran the legal department and acted as comptroller.

And last but not least by a very long shot, dapper Dr. Luc Monnet, head of R and D, one seat away from the other two. Monnet was the partner with both a Ph.D. and an M.D., who published supposedly groundbreaking papers about things only three people in the world could understand.

Monnet… simply looking at the man set Milos on edge. Something about him made Milos want to flatten his frog nose. Maybe it was his air of superiority, as if he were royalty or something. Or maybe it was the way he looked at Milos, as if he'd crawled out from under a rock. Milos could stare the other two down in a couple of heartbeats, but Monnet… Monnet crossed his arms, leaned back, and matched him eye for eye.

Milos clenched his jaw. I can buy and sell you, Monnet. My folks were immigrants just like yours. We both started with nothing, but I made the big bucks while you were pulling down a teacher's salary, living in genteel poverty. Now you're rich too, but only because of my connections. Without me you'd be bankrupt.

And yet he knew Monnet looked down on him, as if he sat high on some pedestal of savoir faire that Milos could never reach.

"Sorry, Milos," Monnet said in that cultured voice of his. "The next shipment of Loki won't be ready until early next week."

"It's true," Garrison said. Ropes of sweat trailed over his pudgy cheeks. Stick an apple in his mouth and he'd look like a roast suckling pig. "We'd give it to you if we had it—you know that."

"A-a-and let's face it," Edwards said. "We don't make any money by not shipping, right? But this ran is about to turn. We won't be able to start a new run until the weekend."

"Perhaps I don't have your attention. Yes? Is that it?" Milos said, thickening his accent. He turned, lifted a chair, and hurled it against the wall. "Now! Do you hear? I want Loki shipment now!"

His parents had brought him here from Herzegovina at age five. His father had been a Chetnik during World War Two who had found it impossible to live under the Communists afterward. He escaped and brought his family to Brooklyn, where they had never felt at ease. Milos had spent most of his childhood and adolescence scrubbing his speech of any trace of his foreign roots. He'd succeeded. By high school he could speak accent-free English. But as he'd moved into quasi-legal circles, he learned that a bit of an accent could be useful—for charming or threatening, depending on the context. So by age twenty Milos Dragovic had backpedaled and begun imitating his father's English.

"It's not there to give you!" Edwards wailed, cowering in his seat.

"Why not? You are selling to someone else? Yes? This is why you don't give me shipment?"

"God, no!" said Garrison. "We'd never do anything like that!"

"You damn better not! If I find you give Dragovic's Loki to someone else, I wring your necks like chick-ens!" He pressed his two fists together, thumb to thumb, and twisted.

Edwards winced.

"So," Milos said, placing his hands on his hips. "If no one else has my Loki, where is it?"

"We don't have it!" Edwards said. He looked like he was going to cry.

Milos hid a smile. He loved torturing these wimps. He knew they ran dry every month, knew damn well they weren't selling to anybody else, but he couldn't resist striking the fear of God—in this case, a vengeful god called Milos—into their blue-blooded hearts. He looked forward to these little meetings. And this windowless, soundproof, electronically secure boardroom was perfect. He could shout, throw things, and no one outside had a clue as to what was going on. Milos preferred to drop in without notice, sans bodyguards—he didn't want anyone else in his organization knowing the origin of Loki—and terrorize the wimps for a few minutes, then take off, leaving them quaking in their brown-stained undershorts.

All except Monnet.

Keep up the game face, Doctor, Milos thought. I've got something special saved, just for you, something that will wipe that smug expression clean off your ugly little face.

Monnet sighed. "How many times do we have to go through this? The Loki molecule becomes unstable. When that happens we need to secure a new template. We will have that by tomorrow. We will start running it immediately. We will test its potency and then go into full-scale production."

Milos leaned forward on the table, glaring at the smaller man. "Is Dr. Monnet"—he made sure to mispronounce it Moe-nett—"saying that I am stupid?"

Monnet held his gaze. "Quite the contrary. I think you are far more intelligent than you would like us to think. Which makes these transparent displays of ferocity fruitless and redundant."

Monnet's blase tone made Milos want to rip his head off. But he calmed himself and decided it was time for an about-face. Time to reconfirm their suspicions that he was utterly psycho.