Three people occupied the room on the sixth floor of the Institute-a tall man in a lab coat and a short, dark-skinned woman hovered near the operating table in the center of the room. A second woman, on her back on that table, screamed through the pains of labor.

The woman's screams abated briefly.

The tall man examined the white translucent rubber of his gloved hands against the light above the operating table. "Velma," he said. "How much longer must I tolerate this?"

Velma lifted the sheet draped over the screaming woman's belly. "Soon it will arrive," she said in her broken, lilting accent. "That I can plainly see."

"Not soon enough," the man said. He absently pulled at the rubber on his right index finger then released it with a snap lost in the screaming. "Roll up a towel and stuff it in her mouth."

Velma nodded. The black skin of her broad face glistened with sweat brought by the heat of the light and the exertion of holding the woman down.

As Velma reached for the towel on a cart near the table, the woman screamed again. And again. With enough agony to bring her into a half-sitting position.

The man brought his hand back in a threat to slap her, but she was far beyond noticing.

She screamed and writhed, pulling at the sheet that covered her lower body.

"Velma!" the man shouted to be heard above the woman's screams.

Velma had already dropped the half-rolled towel and had her hands on the woman's shoulders, trying the push her down. But the woman was frantic with pain and shook off Velma's strong hands.

Her screams somehow grew in volume. Quickened in pace. Her body lurched and shuddered, and she managed to rip away the covering sheet.

They all saw the gleaming dark wetness of the top of the baby's head.

Now the man did slap the woman, then he pushed her back and threw the sheet into place again. He leaned his weight onto her, feeling her struggle like a fish pulled from water.

Velma positioned herself between the woman's legs. She placed a hand below the sheet on the woman's belly to feel for the rhythm of her contractions.

Slowly, scream by scream, the baby's head emerged.

Velma eased the baby's movement, ready to assist, to turn the baby's shoulders during the next contraction.

The woman screamed with shorter, stronger bursts, matching her short, strong pushes of agony.

When Velma felt the baby's shoulders emerge, she lifted her eyes to the tall man. That's all it had taken for her to know-contact with the baby's shoulders.

The tall man had been watching, waiting for Velma's reaction. She shook her head no to his silent questions as a final contraction pushed the baby into her hands.

The tall man turned his head to the side and spit disgust onto the floor.

In that moment of distraction, the woman rose to her elbows, ripped at the sheet, and saw, for the first time, the baby she had brought dead into the world.

She tried to scream again, but the shock of what she saw robbed her of breath.

They were all three frozen for the single moment. The tall man at the side of the table. The short woman at the end of the table. And the woman on the table unable to comprehend.

The moment ended as the woman's body finally delivered air to her lungs, and she screamed with a differend sound, a primal, piercing cry of horror.

The tall man turned from the table and exited the room on the sixth floor of the Institute. He slammed the door shut and angrily strode down the wide corridor.

Behind him came the heavy thumping of leather soles.

The tall man turned. He frowned at the sight of a giant sprinting down the hall toward him. Why would Zwaan be running?

The tall man put up a hand to stop Zwaan. "Listen," the tall man said. "Velma is in the birthing room. The woman with her cannot be permitted to return to the ward."

"Josef," the giant said. His voice came out as a strained whisper, made more eerie by his efforts to control his hard breathing.

"Understand, Zwaan. Do not let the woman live. She saw too much."

"Josef!"

"Yes, Zwaan." Josef Van Klees knew well that Zwaan had an urgent message. But the Institute's master never showed concern, not even to Zwaan.

"It is not good," Zwaan said. "There has been an escape."

*************************************************************************************************************************

Slater Ellis slammed on his brakes, throwing chunks of gravel as he fought his 4 x 4 to a sliding stop. At first he'd figured the shiny red spots reflected at the height to be the eyes of a deer, mesmerized by his headlight. A second later, no. Not with white reflected in the halogen glare; to much white for any animal that size. The white of human skin. It had been a boy, naked, held motionless for the final seconds before impact, startled into forward flight by the grinding roar of skidding gravel as Slater had finally believed the message delivered to his eyes.

A boy? Here in the canyon?

Slater took a deep breath, reached into the glove compartment for a flashlight, steeped into the night, and left his truck idling in the center of the road, headlights now bouncing off dust that settled like fog. It'd be good if another vehicle came this way, was forced to stop and park behind him. Give him another set of eyes to search for the boy-if he could get anyone to believe him about the boy.

Yet there it was, where the gravel gave way to sand on the shoulder of the road. The print of a bare foot, small, its edge softening as grains of sand trickled inward.

Bare feet?

"Son!" he called into the brush beside the road.'"You all right?"

No answer. Chittering of insects. Droning of an airplane. Ticking of the truck's engine. But no answer from the boy.

"Son! It's okay! I can take you to your home!"

Again no answer. Slater shook his head. Home? What could possibly be home for a boy lost here in New Mexico's canyons? Cuba was the closest town to the west, twelve miles ahead, ten of it this narrow gravel and sand that wound through the mountains. Yet wouldn't it be in the news if one of the town boys were missing in these canyons?

No tourists in this area. Not exactly the beaten path for runaways to Los Angeles either. And the boy's skin had been too pale. This was no Navajo kid on some sort of manhood ritual, and anyway the edge of the Temez reserve was a half-hour south, over mountains as the crow flies, where the mountain wall dropped abruptly to the desert flats.

"Son!" Slater drew breath to shout more, but stopped. The kid still had to be in hearing range. Why didn't he answer?

Okay. If he hadn't answered by now, he didn't want to be found. Frightened maybe? Dropped off or escaped from some loony who thought this part of New Mexico was remote enough for whatever he'd planned to do with the boy?

Maybe the boy was hurt, too hurt to reply.

But Slater would have sworn his front bumper had missed the kid. Still, it had happened quickly. Best, Slater decided, to follow the footprints.

Slater pushed into darkness, letting his flashlight probe the ground. A few steps later he found another print. Way ahead, the next. The kid had been running some kind of fast to stretch them apart like this. But through brush at night-did the kid have headlights for eyes?

Slater checked the ground for blood. Nothing. Sand. Wiry grass like thin shadow dancers in the beam of his flashlight. Dry grass. Dry brush. Skinny trunks of ponderosa pines. Nothing that gleamed black-red. Because that was how blood appeared at night, Slater knew. Dark glittering jewels more expensive than any ruby. And not nearly as rare.

Slater continued to follow the footprints. How stupid was this? At least two hundred yards into the tangled wildness of brush and snake-filled gullies that normally he wouldn't attempt in daylight.

"Come on kid," he tried again at a half-yell. "This is crazy. You need help. I'll take you straight to town."

"Uvilla strodum nodi! Va go! Va go!"

Slater froze, almost as startled by the sound as by the fact that the kid had finally responded. The voice had come from the deep darkness to his right. Maybe fifty yards away. Had the kid spoken Spanish?

"Espanol?" Slater called. He struggled to find words in that language and briefly cussed himself for the lack. In New Mexico for four years now, and pressed like this, he couldn't even say hello in Spanish. Would have to do something about that. But for now, there was some kid out there who needed to know Slater could help. "Espanol?" Slater called again.

"Uvilla strodum nodi! Va go! Va go!" Accurate or not, it's what the words sounded like to Slater.

Slater took a half-dozen steps toward the voice. Something whizzed nearby in the darkness, clipped a branch.

"Kid, it's just me. One of the good guys." Right, Slater told himself with a shake of his head. A forty-year-old runaway, and you're calling yourself one of the good guys, when maybe the best you could say about yourself is that you haven't let yourself run to fat, you have no debts, and you've managed to live here in the canyons for nine months without intruding or being intruded on. The next rock caught Slater just above the wrist and knocked the flashlight loose. It felt like he'd been hit by a baseball bat. Slater grunted, swore, danced, picked up the flashlight, and examined his wrist to find a deep gash, blood gleaming black-red. Slater decide a second later that the flashlight was a dumb idea. Nothing like giving the kid a target. He was not prepared to believe that last rock had been lucky.

He shut off the flashlight. "You win, kid! I'm out of here."

Slater began his retreat, feeling his way back, glad that his eyes had begun to adjust to the new darkness. If it weren't for the clearness of the night sky and the light that came from the moon...

A snap of broken branch nearby and behind him.

He felt his first chill of fear. The kid had moved on him. Why was the kid following him after throwing rocks at him?

More rustling. Now closer. Then, incredibly, ahead of him even though he'd picked up his pace. How'd the kid do it?

His fear became a slick sheen of cold sweat. Slater fought the urge to sprint ahead, barely held himself from crashing through the brush like a wounded animal. Slater told himself, commanded himself, to relax. What was the kid going to do? Jump him! Jump an adult three times his size? Hardly.

Slater heard himself breathing, and despite his fierce warnings to himself, he broke into a half-run. Branches tore at his arms. His face. A high keening sound came from beside him. Too close. This kid was crazy. And in full pursuit.

Slater could no longer push it away. Irrational panic. As if a deep instinct was overloading him with the sense of his own violent death.

He snapped on his flashlight and began to sprint, running away in desperation from a kid he knew had barely stood higher than his headlights. What was this screaming fear that possessed him so completely?

Slater ducked what branches he saw, ripped through brush he couldn't avoid. He finally reached the last gully before the road and scrambled upward.

Almost to the truck, he made the mistake of turning his head like he was trying to convince hirmself he had a reason to run from some kid here in the middle of the desert night.

He had time to blink. But that was it. What he saw was a shadow hurtling through the air. Slater wasn't conscious to hear how the chunk of wood bounced off his head like a heavy marble against a melon. And he certainly wasn't able to hear the sigh that left his mouth in a whispered gush, nor did he hear the thump of his own body topple onto the sand shoulder of the road.

*************************************************************************************************************************

Two time zones east, in the cloying sweet humidity of a Florida summer night, Paige Stephens, too, lay alone and motionless on her back. But it was with the forced composure of someone who did not expect the relief of sleep. Beneath the silk sheets, she unclenched the fists at her sides and crossed her hands, resting them palms down on her lower ribs, as if she were in a coffin. That thought crossed her mind, and she nearly laughed bitterly into the darkness. The red negligee, straps now cutting into her shoulders, had cost two hundred plus tax; another sixty dollars for the Paloma Picasso because maybe he just didn't notice the other perfumes anymore; eighty for the champagne that she imagined she could hear fizzing into deadness from the half-empty flute glasses; and two thousand a year, plus endless hours of sweat-no, perspiration-for the workouts that kept enough sags out of her thirty-six-year-old body, so that it shouldn't have been too ridiculous, in the strip-me-now negligee, to arch her back and stretch against the doorway and invite him from his office into the low light of bedroom candles and background Kenny G on the saxophone.

But, as usual, she could have been in a coffin for all that he'd responded.

Sleepless, in the terrible long minutes of self-doubt, Paige finally dared ask herself the question she knew she had been avoiding for months, a question she decided wives probably avoided for as long as possible in the face of overwhelming evidence.

Who was the other woman?

Paige Stephens wanted to step to the window, throw it open regardless of how much air-conditioned coolness it cost the room, and scream that question across the clipped sawgrass lawn, past their docked thirty-six-foot SeaRay that rocked slightly with the swells of the canal beyond the lawn. Who are you?

Paige knew it was another woman. What else could explain what Darby had become over the last few months! Edgy. Secretive. Subject to long, late work nights. Too many weekends on business trips. Unromantic. Definitely unromantic.

Who are you?

Auburn hair too? My height? Or had Darby's taste changed with his obvious disinterest? Was it his secretary, a cliched suspicion only cliched because it too often did happen that way?

So what hurts worse, Paige asked herself, that he has another woman, or that he won't even bother with me anymore?

The phone rang. A half-ring. Darby in his home office down the hall had snatched it up quickly, as if that could convince her the phone had not rung at all, that the damage had not been done.

But the damage had been done. Unless it was an emergency, none of their friends would call at this hour. She'd really have to practice self-deception to believe it was a business call, that her husband-in-name, the head accountant for International World Relief Committee, was responding to yet another funding crisis.

Paige sat up and hugged her knees as she wondered what to do about the telephone.

Today, she now told herself, had been the first day of competition. Her careful choice of negligee, the long bubble bath, all of it had been a subconscious plan to fight back for what she had lost. Her husband. She'd been fighting the unknown, yes, even at that point, the unadmitted enemy.

Until now. The choice was here to be made.

Fight on. Or retreat.

She pivoted to set her feet on the floor and sat on the edge of the bed. She worked a finger beneath the handset of the extension telephone and pressed the release button, holding the pressure so that she could lift the handset to her ear. She eased the pressure slowly, hoped the connecting click would not be obvious to Darby.

"...you think I care you're upset I called you at home?" Paige nearly gasped with surprised pleasure to discover the enemy's voice was low and male. Raspy, rough, strained. Not female, throaty, husky, purring as she'd feared.

"You've been making yourself scarce. Not returning calls."

"I'm tired of it." Darby's voice was barely more than a whisper. "Ends don't justify the means."

"Cut the philosophical crap. You're in too deep. And you know it."

"I want out."

"With a guarantee of silence?"

"Of course."

"Impossible to guarantee." It seemed the man was straining to speak. "Especially with what you did, Darby. We know it was you. Who else would have done it? Air vents, right?"

"I want out. I can't sleep. When I close my eyes, all I see is that room with the jars and..."

"You get paid, what, a half-million a year!"

"That's for time and expertise. Not my conscience."

"Spare me, Darby. You had a good idea of what this was about when you set it up."

There was a long pause. Breathing. Paige wanted to hang up. This explained enough. She still had her husband. But was it a husband she knew? She pressed the phone harder against her ear and strained to listen.

"Darby, you don't actually believe we would let this go unpunished." "You will. You won't get to me. Nobody will." "Anywhere in the world, we'll get you." "Not where I'm going."

"If not you, how about your wife? She is beautiful, isn't she? Your wife?"

"She's protected. From the beginning I set that up," Darby said. "You won't dare touch her. I've got computer disks that show all the numbers. All the corporations. Names, too, right into D.C. Anything happens to her, everything is released to the media."

"Redhead, right?" the raspy voice continued. "Long legs that reach at least to her neck and -"

Paige winced at the slamming of the phone. Silence. No dial tone.

"Darby?" The male voice laughed cruelly. "Darby?"

Paige realized the disconnection had not happened because she still held the extension to her ear. She set the handset back into place.

Five minutes later, she heard Darby's office door shut. She listened to his progress as he padded down the hallway. She already knew what she would do once he got into bed. Ease his strain, hold him close, comfort him, not ask questions, just let him know she cared about him, loved him even through his periods of silence and noncommunication.

The bedroom door did not open as expected.

Instead, his footsteps continued down the hall to the guest bedroom.

That had been another habit that until tonight had bothered her. He often readied himself in the guest bathroom. Taking a shower to rid himself of perfume, she'd always thought without letting herself think it. Well, she no longer needed to worry about that. Whatever was distracting him, it wasn't another woman.

She relaxed in her world of darkness. It did not upset her now to be staring at the ceiling. Whatever was bothering Darby could be fixed. It wasn't the nightmare of infidelity. Whatever it was, she could deal with it.

The sharp, sudden loudness echoed for several heartbeats before she recognized what she had heard.

A gunshot. From down the hallway. From the guest bathroom.

A single gunshot. With the horror of silence after.

Behind his smile-a winning, engaging smile he knew and used accordingly-Josef Van Klees enioyed a set of thoughts that ran parallel to the dinner conversation. With only half the meal finished, the parallel thoughts were the only way he could contemplate getting through the boredom ahead.

"Have more wine, please," he said to Simon Curzio with that winning, engaging smile. But Josef's thoughts were on that distasteful yet fascinating documentary he'd once seen showing men with spiked clubs killing baby seals on the ice floes off the northern Atlantic Coast.

To further enjoy the workings of his brain, Josef Van Klees decided to test himself while pouring the red wine for the graduate student in front of him.

"You see, your work sparkles as does a good wine," Dr. Van Klees said in the smooth voice. Retrieve data ... northern Atlantic Coast. Off Labrador, a section of the Canadian province of Newfoundland, approximate area 285,000 square kilometers. Latitude, then, 54 degrees latitude, 58 degrees longitude....Aren't wonderful minds good and good minds wonderful? "Yes, Simon, my friend. I may call you friend? Like a good wine, Simon, your graduate work has been so powerful it is almost intoxicatingly delightful at times."

Van Klees chose not to bestow upon Simon another winning, engaging smile and instead leaned forward slightly to set his elbows down on the white linen tablecloth, furrowing his brow to indicate sincere seriousness.

Van Klees gave Simon a full-voltage intense stare and gauged his subiect.

Simon Curzio. Twenty-seven, no immediate family, no girlfriend, but, as Van Klees already knew from Zwaan's report, he had a habit of visiting peep shows most Friday nights. Little income, $35,000 in outstanding student loans. Also, as was now obvious, awkward, skinny, with a straggly goatee, smudge of garlic butter on a red polyester tie-polyester!-much too wide and much too short and much too red, faded as it was, for the green-brown of his worn suit jacket.

Curzio responded as if salivating to a bell. "Well, Dr. Van Klees..."

Good. No "Josef' in return. The fool at least recognizes his inferiority. It is always so tiring to endure chummy familiarity.

"...the limitation of the restriction enzymes, it seemed, was that the bacteria are so determined to destroy foreign invading viruses. It started off as intuition, but I thought if I could find a different way to biofacture these genes into becoming more precise scalpels, the recombinant factor-"

"Simon, Simon." Van Klees interrupted with a benevolent chuckle. Anything, not to have to listen to a four-year-old explain the ABCs. "Look around us, Simon. Chicago's most elegant restaurant. Surely, we can leave the laboratory behind for a single evening!"

Curzio dropped his head, actually dropped his head as if reprimanded, and nervously rubbed his goatee with his left hand. Fingernails, naturally, chewed to stubs.

Now lift him up again.

"Simon," Van Klees said gently, "I can only give you such advice because I was just like you. My mind was always on work. It took many difficult years to finally understand I could improve my work by resting on occasion. A pause to sharpen the ax, so to speak. If you realize that, why, you will outshine me as the sun outshines the stars."

Curzio looked up again. Grinned. Shyly. Admiration, even adoration in his eyes. And why not? Josef knew the picture he painted as he strode back and forth in the university lecture hall. Tall, with sleek emphasis given to his height by the elegant cut of his European tailored suits, an even-featured face, hair graying at the temples and trimmed twice weekly, the hint of a dimple in the cleft of his chin when he smiled. No, mirrors do not lie. He always checked himself carefully before facing his students. His wonderful appearance reflected his mind, as they all knew. But what they didn't know- and it was impossible, of course, for any of the sheep to understand-was how inadequately his cultured appearance reflected the supreme greatness of his mind. Who else could juggle what he did in his mind, so superbly continue with business as usual, and not betray a single hint of worry for the escape in New Mexico or the matters in Florida?

"Dr. Van Klees..."-Josef waived away any hint at a compliment.

"Simon, you have probably guessed this is no ordinary evening. Yes, with your brilliance, you probably even realize the purpose of our time together."

"I can only hope..."

Because his brain worked so much faster than those of ordinary humans, Josef knew he could process whatever thoughts he chose to use as a welcome distraction and still return to the conversation before Curzio stammered further.

Like clubbing the hapless baby seals, he mused. Deception is so easy. People are so stupid, so transparent. Their transparency allows you to see clearly what they want, and their stupidity causes them to believe your illusions. The more powerful, the easier the deception, for their wants are far grander and the urge to believe accordingly greater. What better proof of this than the laboratory for which he was now successfully wooing this candidate?

At that thought, Dr. Van Klees almost coughed laughter into his red wine. He refrained, however. Common as the wine was, it was still excellent. Van Klees prided himself on not being such a snob that he might refuse excellence simply because it was common. Only someone vastly cruder than he would cough and spew traces of body fluids into the wonders of a fermented cabernet sauvignon grape. Besides, he didn't want to startle the little fish before him into jumping off the hook.

"Your hope is, of course, close to the mark, Simon. I know of a corporation that is determined to put you in their employ."

Simon's pocked face brightened more, if that were possible. Then dimmed. "Grunt work, I suppose," he said softly, muted in disappointment. "For just one more Ph.D. lab assistant in a pharmaceutical company."

The fool didn't even ask why a corporate spokesman was not here to make the pitch. Although there was an answer prepared for that.

"Tut-tut." Van Klees swept his arm to indicate the restaurant settings. "Would they be putting all of this on a corporate voucher for ordinary recruitment? They know there are dozens of Ph.D.'s desperate for work in their field. A meal like this is redundant alongside any job offer.

Simon went back to rubbing his goatee.

Remember this, Van Klees told himself, a nervous mannerism to let you look into his mind.

"No, Simon, you will head designated projects." Designated by himself, naturally, the one with a brilliant mind capable of the insight to find new directions. After all, Simon Curzio had not been chosen because of his initiative-as the fool was so willing to believe --but rather for his steady lab work and distinct ability to absorb new information instead of questioning it. "Simon, the laboratory is the most modern that money can buy. The taxes alone on your first year's salary will be more than you've earned in the last five years."

Simon laughed. "There's got to be a catch sonrewhere."

"Only if you dislike seventy-hour work weeks and total focus on the pursuit of knowledge."

"You don't get a Ph.D. without either, do you?"

Van Klees gave the benevolent smile, as if that last statement had actually been profound, then he returned to more serious sincerity. This little fish had the hook deep in his throat. Give him slightly more line to see if he was ready to swallow hard.

"You'll have to move from Chicago," Van Klees said. "Throughout the year, four weeks on-site, five days off. The site has every amenity you could possibly need, including, shall we say... entertainment that is warm and willing."

For the first time since sitting opposite Van Klees, Simon Curzio frowned. His fingers worked faster on the goatee. "Site? Sounds like a military base."

Had this little fish tasted steel beneath the bait?

"Military? Not precisely."

"My apologies, sir, but even close to military...I would need to know more."

Fine then, my little fool, I shall present you the bait of your life. Swallow the hook. Or disgorge.

"The site is private," Van Klees said. "To maintain privacy, it does have practical aspects copied from the military. The inconvenience is more than compensated for by the luxury of working on projects that certain sectors of the more fanatical public might hinder."

Curzio's frown deepened.

He is spitting out the hook. I know it already.

"Unfortunately, Dr. Van Klees, that makes me more nervous." Greasy fingers through greasy beard. How repugnant. "Genetics is an area that I, well, I don't want to sound naive, but I'm in it because I want to have influence on the direction it takes. The ethics, that stuff."

Van Klees clapped with glee, an action so unexpected that Curzio dropped his hand from his goatee.

"Well done, Simon!" Van Klees poured more red wine into both of their glasses. "You have successfully passed this corporation's biggest test?"

"I don't understand."

"Had you agreed to exploring some of the less savory boundaries, young man, I would have smiled and nodded and finished the meal and recommended against you. This corporation, too, realizes that genetics is a two-edged sword. It does not wish to employ scientists who have no scruples."

Simon sat back and grinned in triumphant understanding.

Van Klees permitted his smile to broaden as well, using it to hide seething fury. How could Zwaan have missed this? Bleeding-heart idealism. The illusions of a high moral cause. Zwaan knew, absolutely knew, it was standard procedure to discover whether the candidates put pure science above all.

Van Klees continued to smile outwardly. Then he let it grow inwardly. Zwaan was arriving tomorrow. Zwaan had caused this problem; Zwaan would fix it.

"Yes, a toast," Van Klees said as he raised his glass. Against the light of a chandelier, it shimmered blood red. "Next week, Simon, comporate officials will contact you with more deatils."

Details of your accidental death, you stupid little fish.

Simon accepted the toast and tossed back half the glass.

Behind his smile-the winning, engaging smile-Josef Van Klees returned to enjoying his thoughts.

Deception is so easy.