He delayed a moment before answering. He was like a fisherman, waiting to make sure the hook was in the fish’s mouth before jerking the line.

“How brave are you?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” I said. “Brave enough, when I have to be.”

“I’m asking because there’s a chance for you to do some important reporting on your trip, if you have the stomach for it. It’s something only you can do. It will be hard work, and you’ll need Arthur Bowman’s help even to get close. But if you’re interested, I’ll tell you about it.”

“I’m interested,” I said. “Tell me what you have in mind.”

Rubino was so good at what he did. I realize now that he had prepared himself so well for this meeting that he was able to make it all seem natural. We’d drunk our beers, talked about ourselves, eaten some burgers. He didn’t even have to say ‘This is off the record’ to me anymore. I had silently accepted that we were operating under some new ground rule—premised on nonreporting in the short run, in exchange for some long-run payoff. That lure had brought me to Rubino’s house. Now he was deftly opening a door, and I didn’t see the surprise coming—didn’t even realize it was there—until we were on the other side.

“When you were in Paris, you met a French neurobiologist named Roger Navarre. Do you remember? It was right before the Taillevent mess.”

“Of course I remember Navarre. He was a sweet man, who was being manipulated by the people he worked for at Unetat. I gather your colleagues were watching him, too.”

“We had him under surveillance, for reasons I’ll explain. Bear with me a little longer and I think you’ll understand.”

“Okay. What’s Navarre doing now?”

“He still works for Unetat, but for the past year he has been on loan to a private biotechnology-research center run jointly by Unetat and the Chinese government. We’re convinced this is where they’re doing the BW research. We think Navarre is very unhappy with what he’s doing, and that he wants to come home. But his colleagues won’t let him. He’s too valuable.”

“Have your people in China contacted him?”

“No. We’ve tried, but we can’t get to him. We tried to pass a message a while ago through a third party, but it didn’t work. That’s why we need you. We think maybe you could get into that lab and see him. He knows you already; you’re a friendly face, he’ll trust you. You could talk to him, and find out what’s going on in that lab.”