Luc later learned that Dragovic had performed impromptu human studies with the samples. He'd discovered that a little of the blue powder imparted an intense euphoria, an on-top-of-the-world feeling. A larger amount elicited outbursts of mindless violence at the slightest provocation, sometimes with no provocation at all.

Dragovic had found an instant market in his gunrunning customers, so he sent the first shipments to his contacts in the various Balkan militias. Word spread like wildfire through the military underground and soon every military and paramilitary organization—from the Iraqis and the Iranians to the Israelis and Hamas—wanted a supply.

Dragovic set up a dummy corporation in Rome where he received bulk quantities of Loki shipped from GEM as TriCef. There his people filled capsules and pounded out tablets to distribute Loki throughout the world.

"Yeah," Kent said, "but we thought his market was a bunch of Third World military crazies who'd kill each other off and that would be it."

"Right," Brad said. "Who ever dreamed it would become a street drug right in our own backyards?"

Luc couldn't help laughing.

"What's so fucking funny?" Kent shouted.

"I ought to call Mr. Prather and see if he has use for ethical contortionists!"

"Don't push me, Luc," Kent gritted through his teeth.

"That's not fair," Brad said. "I've been tortured by this."

"Really?" Luc said. He didn't know why he was feeling so hostile. Almost as if he'd taken some of that damn drug himself. "I haven't noticed a big surplus in your draw account."

Brad averted his gaze.

The truth was that the huge profits from Loki had salved all their consciences. The drug had turned GEM Pharma into a money machine—a self-laundering money machine from which all the income derived from Loki was cleaned up by declaring it as profit from international sales of TriCef.

Kent had devised an almost perfect system. GEM synthesized the drug in its heavily automated Brooklyn plant where the few employees needed to maintain the production line thought they were manufacturing an antibiotic. GEM records showed bulk shipments of TriCef to Rome. From there the drug traveled such a tortuous path of cutting and packaging and repackaging that by the time the pills reached America their trail was so attenuated that it would be virtually impossible to trace them back to GEM.

Atop all that was the added safety factor of the un-consumed Loki spontaneously converting to an inert compound every new moon.

Loki had made them all very rich, but also guilty, trapped, and desperate.

And paranoid.

Dragovic's mercurial moods were not their only worry. A few months ago Brad had brought up the possibility of a hostile takeover by another corporation. The purchase of a controlling percentage of GEM stock would inevitably lead to exposure of their secret. To head that off they had been funneling the funds earmarked for basic research into the repurchase of their own company's stock.

What a catastrophic mess.

Luc sighed and closed his eyes; he pictured himself in a tiny rural cafe in Provence, sipping dark, rich coffee while the owner's cat basked nearby in a sunny window.

In three weeks I'll be out of this. Just three weeks.

But if Gleason blew the whistle… Luc's bucolic vision shifted from rural France to a jail cell right here in Manhattan.

He opened his eyes and fixed Brad, the company comptroller. "Prather will want cash, in advance. It's Saturday. How will you—?"

"I'll get it," Brad said. "Same amount as for Macintosh, I assume. I'll have it for you by this afternoon."

"One more thing we need to consider: Gleason has some sort of relationship with our new researcher."

Kent clapped his hands against the sides of his head and tugged on his red hair. "Aw, shit! How close?"

"I can't say. I do know he recommended her for the job, but beyond that…" Luc shrugged.

"Dear God," Brad said. "Can't anything be simple? What if they're close? We don't want to do anything to distract her from her work! You've got to find out!"

Luc rose. "I'll do my best."

"In the meantime," Kent told Brad, "get the cash together."

As Luc turned and reached for the door, Brad's voice was a low moan behind him. "How long can we keep this up?"

Brad was unraveling before their eyes.

Hang on just a little longer, Brad, Luc thought. Just a few more weeks. After that, you can dissolve into a quivering mass of Jell-O for all I care.

9

"If Abe vouches for you," Tom Terrific said, "that's good enough for me. But I'd like my consultation fee up front if you don't mind."

'Take a check?" Jack said.

Tom Terrific acknowledged the patent absurdity with a smile that revealed small yellow teeth spaced like kernels on a stunted ear of corn. His forehead went back even farther than Abe's, but he was much thinner, and the long salt-and-pepper hair growing off the rear half of his scalp was twisted into a single braid. He looked to be in his late forties, slightly hunched posture, painfully thin, wearing torn jeans and a sleeveless Mighty Ducks sweatshirt that revealed a showroom of tattoos up and down his arms. The Harley-Davidson insignia clung to his wasted left deltoid; a big red "1%" was engraved on his right. If Uncle Creepy had been a Hell's Angel, he'd have looked like Tom Terrific.

"I see you're into ink, Mr. Terrific," Jack said as he pulled a hundred-dollar bill from his back pocket. "You into bikes too?"

The massive rottweiler in the corner leaped to his feet and growled as Jack's hand moved toward Tom Terrific with the money.

"Easy, Manfred," he said without turning his head. "He's only giving Daddy some bread." To Jack: "Hey, call me Tom, Okay. The Terrific's just for kicks, y'know? And as for being a biker, yeah, I used to ride. Dropped outta Berkeley and rode with a Fresno gang for about ten years. Used to weigh in at an eighth of a ton too. But those days are gone. I now live the life of a pharmaceutical artiste."

Jack glanced around the basement apartment. Abe had led him down here to a narrow cobblestone street just south of Canal in Chinatown where Tom Terrific was probably the only non-Asian resident. His furnished apartment sat under a Thai restaurant, although furnished was probably a euphemism. The rug and furniture looked like the kind of stuff that people put out on the curb but nobody would haul away, not even the sanit men.

A long way from the digs of that other pharmaceutical artiste, Dr. Luc Monnet.

"What do you want to know?" Tom said as he tucked away the bill. "Looking to start your own operation?"

Jack shook his head. "Just want to know about Berzerk. Heard of it?"

"Heard of it?" Tom Terrific snorted. "Course I heard of it. Just wish I could make the damn stuff."

'Tom Terrific can't make it?" Abe said as he eased himself into a threadbare lounger. "I've always heard that if you can't make it, it can't be made."

"True up till this new stuff arrived. But lemme tell you, man, it's got me stumped." He grinned again. "But I'm not alone. Got the feds stumped too. They keep trying to class it as a CDS—"

"Seedy what?" Jack said.

"CDS—controlled dangerous substance—but they can't seem to pin down its molecular structure. Which, considering the equipment those fuckers got, must be real complex. But I'm not surprised. I mean, it's one fucking elegant drug from the distribution standpoint because it degrades into an inert substance after a while." He cackled. "Driving the feds and the cops nuts, man. They bust somebody with the stuff and by the time arraignment comes around, the evidence ain't a drug no more."

"The preppy riot guy!" Jack said, snapping his fingers. "They had to let him go because they said someone pulled a switch with the evidence."