"What the hell are you talking about?"

His eyes gleamed now.

"The publicity, Sara. The media doesn't focus very long on medical developments, but throw in a Gay Slasher and whammo, you have nationwide press. Look at the News Flash report. Parker spent more time on the serial killings than on the AIDS cure. The murders stirred up the masses in a way even Sanders would have been proud of.

Record- setting donations have been flooding in since the show aired, not just because we are on the verge of finding a cure, but because people are outraged by the slashings."

Sara gripped her cane tightly.

"You crazy bastard."

"No, Sara, I am rational. I am looking at it on a cost-benefit basis.

Trian, Whitherson, and Martino were going to die awful, painful deaths from AIDS. Instead, they were killed painlessly while helping the development of a cure."

"You call mutilation and torture merciful?"

His smile evaporated.

"That was never supposed to happen," he said quickly.

"That was George's doing. As soon as I found out about it, I put a stop to it. It was a mistake."

"And what about Bruce and Janice? More 'mistakes'?"

"I never wanted to hurt them. Bruce stumbled onto the truth.

He had to be silenced. And George killed Janice when she spotted him near Michael's room. They were both accidents. I mourn for them more than anyone. I can't sleep at night because of what happened to them.

But I have to shut my eyes to my pain. When I think of the goal, Sara, when I think of the possibility of curing AIDS, I realize how insignificant a few lives are. I'm not talking about saving hundreds of lives here. I'm talking about saving thousands, perhaps millions, of people."

Her harsh glare did not waver.

"So they were expendable?"

"I know it sounds cruel, but it's true."

"The end justifies the means?"

"When the end is something as important as an AIDS vaccine, of course the end justifies the means. Wouldn't you sacrifice one person to save a thousand? If you could go back in time, wouldn't you murder Hitler rather than let him kill six million Jews?"

"Don't compare innocent victims with Hitler."

"That's not the point and you know it. I am talking about life-and-death realities here. Sometimes the innocent must suffer, it's a fact of life. But if we can stamp out AIDS, isn't it a small price to pay? Wouldn't any good person be willing to sacrifice his life to save thousands of others?"

"Why did you kill Bradley Jenkins? He wasn't one of your cured patients."

"But he was dying and frankly speaking I was terrified of how his father would react if he died while under my treatment. It could have been disastrous for the clinic."

"And that's why you 'sacrificed' him?" "Not just that." Harvey paused and took a deep breath. He tried to renew his smile, but it never reached his eyes.

"Bradley was the third gay man murdered by the Gay Slasher, remember?

The first two, Scott Trian and Bill Whitherson, were ignored by the media for the most part. Why? Because no one cared. Trian and Whitherson were nothing but a couple of unknown faggots.

Ten Trians and Whithersons would have to die before the media really paid attention. But once the Gay Slasher killed the son of a United States senator, once Bradley's bloody body had been found behind a gay bar, then the media became outraged. You're a reporter, Sara. Think about it. When did the media become interested in the case? Not until Bradley was murdered. Then the sympathy began to build. All I had to do was let the world know about the connection to the clinic."

"That's where I came into the picture."

"Yes."

"And I fell for your bullshit hook, line, and sinker."

"You helped me finance the clinic."

"So why did you kill Eric?"

"Eric too became suspicious. Worse, he got proof from the blood sample he took from Michael. I tried to reason with him.

I tried to explain why we had to do all this. But Eric wouldn't listen. He had already put a call in to Markey and was going to tell him everything. I had to stop him before Markey called him back."

Sara shook her head in confusion.

"What does Michael's blood have to do with any of this?"

Harvey moved toward Sara. He grabbed a stool, sat down heavily, and turned toward her.

"It's simple," he said.

"Michael does not have AIDS."

Her heart constricted in her chest. She could barely breathe.

"What?"

"Role reversal, Sara. Think about it a second. In order to make it look like Trian, Whitherson, and Martino were cured, I switched their HIV-positive blood with healthy blood. In Michael's case I did the opposite I exchanged his healthy, HIV-negative blood with someone's who was HIV-positive. He was diagnosed with AIDS, but he never had it."

"But what about his symptoms? What about the stomach pain and the jaundice?"

"Oh, Michael does have hepatitis," he said.

"Do you know how easy it is to give someone hepatitis? All you do is jab him with a contaminated needle. Remember when he came to see me when he had the flu a few months back? The flu shot I gave him came from a contaminated needle..."

"You sick son of a bitch..."

"Then all I had to do was wait for the symptoms to crop up.

If they didn't that happens sometimes I would have found some other way to make him think he was sick with something that could preclude AIDS.

And even though Michael was neither gay nor a drug user, his blood transfusion in the Bahamas gave me the excuse to test him without raising too many eyebrows."

His words bombarded her from every direction, but there was no way to fend off the blows.

"How could you?" she screamed.

"What was the point. Why "

" did I pretend Michael has AIDS?" he finished for her.

"Isn't it obvious?"

Her vocal cords would not work. She could only shake her head.

"Do you remember when we first diagnosed Michael as being HIV positive?" he asked.

"I told Michael that he had a responsibility to go public. I told him that he could make the disease real to the millions of people who ignored the threat because they saw AIDS as just a gay disease. A healthy, handsome, popular basketball star like Michael could bring it out in the open, focus the world's attention on this tragedy like no one before him. To the world he is a fairy-tale prince. To me, he was Rock Hudson and Ryan White rolled into one. He could educate the world. His name alone could finance my research for years."

She gripped the cane ever tighter, her rage mounting.

"He was your friend."

"But don't you see? I was right, Sara. Michael accomplished all of that and more. The fact that he was straight and married to the beautiful and famous Sara Lowell made it all the better even though Sanders tried to take some shine off the apple by dragging out Michael's stepdad."

"You callous bastard," she shouted.

"Then what? Were you going to 'cure' him and make yourself a godamn hero?"

"Not me," he said.

"Never me. It was all for the clinic. It was all in pursuit of finding an AIDS cure."

"How could you?" she hissed.

"Michael loved you."

Harvey looked at her strangely.

"And I love him. I would rather have torn off my own limbs than hurt Michael, you know that. But what good would it have done? I needed someone like Michael. And think about it, Sara: what was the big sacrifice?

He never had AIDS. Hepatitis caught early is not very dangerous.

His life was never in any real danger. Yes, he would have been out of basketball for a while, but so what? He was on his last legs anyway.

And even if he wasn't, it was such a small price to pay for so much good."

"You're insane."

"You're not listening to me."

"I don't want to listen to you. I want to rip your eyes out of your head. I want to crush your skull with my cane."