Death Match

He stuffed the sheet into a pocket of his sweatpants. Then he crossed the room, opened the hidden door, and ascended the stairs to the next level.

When the black door at the end of the hall sprang open, Silver stepped immediately toward the contoured chair, pi

Today he felt simply numb.

“Richard,” the low, uninflected voice said from all corners of the room.

“Liza. What is your current state?”

“Ninety-nine point one seven six two percent operational. Current processes are at eighty-six point two percent of multithreaded capacity. Standard operations can now again access one hundred percent of bandwidth. Thank you for asking.”

“You’re welcome.”

“I had not expected to speak with you at the present time. Do you wish to run a scenario? I have completed a variant of the Rift Valley threat-response game that you might find entertaining. Or do you wish to discuss my thoughts on our current book? I have finished analysis of chapter twenty.”

“Not at present. I have the results of your interrogatory. It came in early.”

“Yes. My estimate was off by seventy-one billion machine cycles.”

“Liza, I have just one question. How sure are you of the result?”

With humans, one could always count on a pause when digesting an unexpected comment. With Liza, there was no such pause. “I do not understand your question.”

“Are you sure the result of the interrogatory is not in error?”

“The result shows no statistical deviation. It is what remains when all unsatisfactory results have been discarded.”

“I am not doubting you, Liza. I simply wanted to make sure.”

“Your concern is understandable. Before initiating the process, you stated it was critical to find the solution. I have found the solution. I hope it proves satisfactory.”

“Thank you, Liza.”

“You are welcome, Richard. Shall we talk further?”

“Soon. There’s something I must do first.”

“Thank you for speaking with me.”

Silver punched the shutdown sequence into the keypad, plucked the electrodes from his temples, and got out of the chair. He waited a minute, listening to the sound of his own breathing. Then he wiped his brow with the towel and headed for the door, reaching for his cell phone and dialing as he stepped into the corridor.

“Mauchly here,” came the voice.

“Edwin, it’s Richard.”

“Yes, Dr. Silver.”

“Edwin, I need you up here. Right away.”

THIRTY-EIGHT

The Norman J. Weisenbaum Center for Biochemical Research stood on a point of land jutting into the Hudson south of Cold Spring. Lash pulled into visitors’ parking, hoisted himself out onto the macadam, and glanced up at the long, low structure of glass and stone that climbed the hillside. It was not at all the way he’d pictured it when he called the center the week before, on the flight back from Phoenix. It was unrelievedly modern. And yet somehow it did not seem out of place in this haven of Dutch gables. The rich tones of polished marble blended nicely with the backdrop of oak and sycamore. Waterbirds wheeled and cried overhead.

Inside, the receptionist’s station was ma

“Just a moment, please.” The woman peered into a monitor recessed into her work surface, held a manicured finger to one ear, listened to an invisible earpiece. Then she looked up at him again. “If you’d kindly take a seat, he’ll be right with you.”

Lash had barely settled into one of the chrome-and-leather chairs when he saw Roger Goodkind approaching. Goodkind was carrying a few more pounds since they’d last met, and the sandy hair was receding dramatically from his temples. But the man still had the same sly half-smile, the same loping walk, of their undergraduate days.

“Chris!” Goodkind clasped Lash’s hand in his. “Punctual as ever.”

“Anxiety disorder. Presenting as compulsive timeliness.”

The biochemist laughed. “If only your diagnosis were that simple.” He led Lash toward an elevator. “Can this really be? Hearing from you like this, twice in two weeks? I’m almost prostrate with gratitude.”

“I wish I could say it was a social call,” Lash replied as the elevator opened, “but the fact is I need your help.”

Goodkind nodded. “Anything.”

Goodkind’s lab was even larger than Lash had anticipated. There were the obligatory lab tables and chemical apparatus, but there were also deep leather chairs, a handsome desk, bookcases full of journals, a stu

“The center’s been kind to me,” Goodkind said with a chuckle. He’d developed a new ma

“So I see.”

“Have a seat. You want a diet soda or something?”

Lash let himself be shown to one of the armchairs. “No, thanks.”

Goodkind took a seat opposite. “So what’s up?”

“Remember why I called you last week?”

“Sure. All those crazy questions about suicide among perfectly happy people.”

“Yes. I’m working on something, Roger, something I can’t tell you much about. Can I rely on you to keep it confidential?”

“What is this, Chris? Is it a Bureau matter?”

“In a way.” Lash watched the man’s eyes widen. If Goodkind thought the Feds were involved, he’d be more likely to cooperate.

Goodkind shifted. “I’ll do whatever I can.”

“You do a lot of work with toxicology, right? Drug side effects, interactions, that sort of thing?”

“It’s not my field of expertise, but, yes, we’re all involved with toxicology to some degree at the center.”

“So tell me. What steps would a biochemist go through in developing a new drug?”

Goodkind ran a hand through his thi

“No, I don’t mean that early in the process. Say you’ve already developed a drug, or something you think might be a drug. What’s the next step?”

Goodkind thought a moment. “Well, you do stability testing. See what delivery vehicle it likes best: tablet, capsule, solution. Then you expose the drug molecule to a variety of conditions — relative humidity, UV light, oxygen, heat — make sure it doesn’t degrade, break down into harmful byproducts.” He gri

“Go on.”

“You perform tox studies, qualify the degradation products. Determine what’s acceptable, what’s not acceptable. Then you do a Trap.”

“A what?”

“A Trap. Toxicological risk analysis procedure. That’s what we call it here at the center, anyway. You run the functional groups — the different parts of the drug molecule — against a knowledge base of existing chemicals and pharmaceuticals. You’re essentially looking for adverse reactions that might cause different, and more dangerous, functional groups. Toxicity potential. Carcinogenicity, neurotoxicity, so forth.”

“And if you find such toxic potential?”

“That’s known as a structure alert. Each alert is flagged and studied for severity.”

“I see. And if the drug passes?”