Things were notgoing well, Rick Diehl thought, as he wiped pur?ed green peas off his face and paused to clean his glasses. It was five in the afternoon. The kitchen was hot. His three kids were sitting at the kitchen table screaming and hitting one another. They were throwing hot dog relish and mustard. The mustard stained everything.

The baby, in the high chair, refused to eat and spat her food right back out. Conchita should have been feeding her, but Conchita had vanished that afternoon. She had become increasingly unreliable ever since Rick’s wife left. Broads stick together. Probably he would have to replace Conchita, which was a big pain in the neck, to hire somebody new, and of course she would sue him. Maybe he could negotiate a settlement with her before she went to court.

“You want it? Take it!” Jason, his oldest, mashed the hot dog with the bun into Sam’s face. Sam howled and acted like he was choking. Now they were rolling on the floor.

“Dad! Dad! Stop him! He’s choking me.”

“Jason, don’t choke your brother.”

Jason paid no attention. Rick grabbed him by the collar and pulled him off Sam. “I said, don’t choke him.”

“I wasn’t. He asked for it.”

“You want to lose TV tonight? No? Then eat your own hot dog and let your brother eat his.”

Rick picked up the spoon to feed the baby, but she closed her mouth stubbornly, staring at him with beady little hostile eyes. He sighed. What was it that made kids in high chairs refuse to eat, and throw all their toys on the floor? Maybe it wasn’t such a good idea for his wife to have gone away, he thought.

As for the office, the situation was even worse. His ex-security guy had been humping Lisa, and now that he was out of jail, he was undoubtedly humping her again. That girl had zero taste. If Brad was convicted of pedophilia, that would be bad publicity for the company, but even so, Rick hoped for it. Josh Winkler’s wonder drug was apparently killing people. Josh had gone way out on a limb, doing his own unauthorized human testing, but if he were sent to jail, that would reflect badly on the company, too.

He was poking at his daughter with the spoon when the phone rang. And things became much, much worse.

“Son of a bitch!”

Rick Diehl turned away from the banks of security screens. “I can’t believe it,” he said. On the screens, the hated Brad Gordon was swiping open doors to the labs, touching Petri dishes everywhere, and moving on. Brad had been recorded as he went methodically through all the labs in the building. Rick bunched his fists.

“He came into the building at one in the morning,” the security temp said. “He must have had an admin card we didn’t know about, because his was disabled. He went to all the storage points, and he contaminated every single culture in the Burnet cell line.”

Rick Diehl said, “He’s an asshole, but there’s no problem. We have off-site bio-storage in San Jose, London, and Singapore.”

“Actually, those samples were removed yesterday,” the security temp said. “Someone picked up the cell lines and left. They had proper authorization. Secure e-transmission of codes.”

“Who authorized it?”

“You did. It came from your secure account.”

“Oh Christ.” He spun. “How didthat happen?”

“We’re working on it.”

“But the cell line,” Rick said, “we have other sites-”

“Unfortunately, it seems…”

“Well, then we have customers who have leased-”

“I’m afraid we don’t.”

“What are you saying?” Rick said. He was starting to scream. “Are you saying every fucking Burnet culture is gone? In the entire fucking world? Gone?”

“As far as we know. Yes.”

“This is a goddamndisaster. ”

“Evidently.”

“This could be the end of my company! That was our safety net, those cells. We paid a fortune to UCLA for them. You’re saying they’re gone?” Rick frowned angrily, as the reality hit him. “This is an organized, coordinated attack on my company. They had people in London and Singapore; they had everything arranged.”

“Yes. We believe so.”

“To destroy my company.”

“Possibly.”

“I need to get those cell lines back. Now.”

“No one has them. Except, of course, Frank Burnet.”

“Then let’s get Burnet.”

“Unfortunately, Mr. Burnet seems to have vanished, too. We can’t seem to locate him.”

“Great,” Rick said. “Just great.” He turned and yelled to his assistant, “Get the fucking lawyers, get fucking UCLA here, and get everybody here by eight o’clock tonight!”

“I don’t know if-”

“Do it!”