While Jack leaped forward, Slam hit the floor, extracting his own machine pistol in the process. It was a skillful maneuver, suggesting the poise and expertise of a Green Beret.

BJ was the first to fire. Since he held his pistol in only one hand, the burst of shots went all over the store, ripping divots in the vinyl flooring and poking holes in the tin ceiling. But most of the shots screamed past the area where Jack and Slam had been standing seconds before, and pounded into the vitamin section below the pharmacy counter.

Slam let out a burst as well. Most of his bullets traveled the length of aisle seven, shattering one of the huge plate-glass windows facing the street.

BJ had pulled himself back the moment he’d seen the element of surprise had been lost. Now he stood, crouched over behind the Bounty paper towels, trying to decide what to do next.

Everyone else in the store was screaming, including the clerk who’d tapped BJ on the shoulder. They began rushing to the exits, fleeing for their lives.

Jack scrambled to his feet. He’d heard Slam’s burst of gunfire, and now he was hearing another burst from BJ. Jack wanted out of the store.

Keeping his head down, he dashed back into the pharmacy area. There was a door that said “Employees Only,” and Jack rushed through. He found himself in a lunchroom. A handful of open soft drinks and half-eaten packaged pastries on the table told him that people had just been there.

Convinced that there was a way out through the back, Jack began opening doors. The first was a bathroom, the second a storeroom.

He heard more sustained gunfire and more screams out in the main part of the store.

Panicked, Jack tried a third door. To his relief it led out into an alley lined with trash cans. In the distance he could see people running. Among those fleeing, he recognized the pharmacist’s white coat. Jack took off after them.

Detective Lieutenant Lou Soldano pulled his unmarked Chevy Caprice into the parking area at the loading bay of the medical examiner’s office. He parked behind Dr. Harold Bingham’s official car and took the keys out of the ignition. He gave them to the security man in case the car had to be moved. Lou was a frequent visitor to the morgue, although he hadn’t been there for over a month.

He got on the elevator and pushed five. He was on his way to Laurie’s office. He’d gotten her message earlier but hadn’t been able to call until a few minutes ago as he was on his way across the Queensboro Bridge. He’d been over in Queens supervising the investigation on a homicide of a prominent banker.

Laurie had been telling him about one of the medical examiners when Lou had interrupted to tell her he was in the neighborhood and could stop by. She’d immediately agreed, telling him she’d be waiting in her office.

Lou got off the elevator and walked down the hall. It brought back memories. There had been a time when he’d thought that he and Laurie could have had a future together. But it hadn’t worked out. Too many differences in their backgrounds, Lou thought.

“Hey, Laur,” Lou called out when he caught sight of her working at her desk. Every time he saw her she looked better to him. Her auburn hair fell over her shoulders in a way that reminded him of shampoo commercials. “Laur” was the nickname his son had given her the first time he’d met her. The name had stuck.

Laurie got up and gave Lou a big hug.

“You’re looking great,” she said.

Lou shrugged self-consciously. “I’m feeling okay,” he said.

“And the children?” Laurie asked.

“Children?” Lou commented. “My daughter is sixteen now going on thirty. She’s boy crazy, and it’s driving me crazy.”

Laurie lifted some journals off the spare chair she and her officemate shared. She gestured for Lou to sit down.

“It’s good to see you, Laurie,” Lou said.

“It’s good to see you too,” she agreed. “We shouldn’t let so much time go by without getting together.”

“So what’s this big problem you wanted to talk to me about?” Lou asked. He wanted to steer the conversation away from potentially painful arenas.

“I don’t know how big it is,” Laurie said. She got up and closed her office door. “One of the new doctors on staff would like to talk to you off the record. I’d mentioned that you and I were friends. Unfortunately, he’s not around at the moment. I checked when you said you were coming over. In fact, no one knows where he is.”

“Any idea what it’s about?” Lou asked.

“Not specifically,” Laurie said. “But I’m worried about him.”

“Oh?” Lou settled back.

“He asked me to do two autopsies this morning. One on a twenty-eight-year-old Caucasian woman who’d been a microbiology tech over at the General. She’d been shot in her apartment last night. The second was on a twenty-five-year-old African-American who’d been shot in Central Park. Before I did the cases he suggested that I try to see if the two were in any way related: through hair, fiber, blood…”

“And?” Lou asked.

“I found some blood on his jacket which preliminarily matches the woman’s,” Laurie said. “Now that’s just by serology. The DNA is pending. But it’s not a common type: B negative.”

Lou raised his eyebrows. “Did this medical examiner give any explanation for his suspicion?” he asked.

“He said it was a hunch,” Laurie said. “But there’s more. I know for a fact that he’d been beaten up recently by some New York gang members-at least once, maybe twice. When he showed up this morning he looked to me like it might have happened again, although he denied it.”

“Why was he beaten up?” Lou asked.

“Supposedly as a warning for him not to go to the Manhattan General Hospital,” Laurie said.

“Whoa!” Lou said. “What are you talking about?”

“I don’t know the details,” Laurie said. “But I do know he’s been irritating a lot of people over there, and for that matter, over here as well. Dr. Bingham has been ready to fire him on several occasions.”

“How’s he been irritating everyone?” Lou asked.

“He has it in his mind that a series of infectious diseases that have appeared over at the General have been spread intentionally.”

“You mean like by a terrorist or something?” Lou asked.

“I suppose,” Laurie said.

“You know this is sounding familiar,” Lou said.

Laurie nodded. “I remember how I felt about that series of overdoses five years ago and the fact that no one believed me.”

“What do you think of your friend’s theory?” Lou said. “By the way, what’s his name?”

“Jack Stapleton,” Laurie said. “As to his theory, I don’t really have all the facts.”

“Come on, Laurie,” Lou said. “I know you better than that. Tell me your opinion.”

“I think he’s seeing conspiracy because he wants to see conspiracy,” Laurie said. “His officemate told me he has a long-standing grudge against the health-care giant AmeriCare, which owns the General.”

“But even so, that doesn’t explain the gang connection or the fact that he might have knowledge of the woman’s murder. What’re the names of the homicide victims?”

“Elizabeth Holderness and Reginald Winthrope,” Laurie said.

Lou wrote down the names in the small black notebook he carried.

“There wasn’t much criminologist work done on either case,” Laurie said.

“You of all people know how limited our personnel is,” Lou said. “Did they have a preliminary motive for the woman?”

“Robbery,” Laurie said.

“Rape?”

“No.”

“How about the man?” Lou asked.

“He was a member of a gang,” Laurie said. “He was shot in the head at relatively close range.”

“Unfortunately, that’s all too common,” Lou said. “We don’t spend a lot of time investigating those. Did the autopsies show anything?”