It was up to Nadia now. He’d tried every way he could imagine to stabilize the molecule but had run up against a wall. Maybe he was too old; maybe his creative juices had dried up; maybe it was the stress dealing with Dragovic and the constant sense of impending doom, the realization that his whole world could implode at any second. Whatever the cause, he’d found himself incapable of breaching that wall.

But a new mind, brilliant, unfettered by such oppressive concerns, might succeed where he’d foundered.

Four weeks… Luc squeezed his eyes shut, You must not fail me, Nadia. Everything depends on you.

7

Nadia sat alone in the darkened room, a bulbous shape floating in the air before her: a molecule of lovastatin, the cholesterol-lowering drug that had gone off-patent; Merck originally had an exclusive on it as Mevacor, but GEM now sold its generic equivalent at a much lower price.

Without taking her eyes off the molecule, Nadia tapped her keyboard, rolled her trackball, and an extra methyl group appeared and attached itself to one end of the larger mass. She rotated the 3-D image 360 degrees in two planes to make sure the new group had the proper orientation, then: voila—lovastatin had become simvastatin, Merck’s other lipid-lowering agent, Zocor. But Zocor was still patent-protected, so that one was off-limits to the production department. For now, at least.

Nadia loved the dry lab and all its state-of-the-art equipment. No jars of reagents, no pipettes, no ovens or incubators—every experiment and chemical reaction in this small spare room was virtual, thanks to the holographic molecular imager. Nadia knew it had to cost a fortune, far more than any other pharmaceutical company GEM’s size would spend. But Dr. Monnet had told her that GEM had made a commitment to original research. They weren’t going to be a me-too company forever. The dry lab was ample proof of that.

Nadia sighed. She was restless. She felt she’d had enough practice now. She had the imager down cold. She was more than ready for her first real challenge.

“Hey,” said a familiar voice behind her. “Can we play DNA Wars on that?”

Nadia gasped and spun in her chair. Her words came in a rush when she saw who it was.

“Doug! My God, what are you doing here! How’d you get in? You’ll be fired if anyone sees you!”

Strong arms pulled her from the chair and enfolded her. She wrapped her arms around Doug and breathed in his cologne—Woods, she knew, because she’d given it to him for his birthday. Nadia held him close, loving the solid feel of him.

Douglas Gleason, a fair-haired six-footer with an easy smile and merry blue eyes. A natural charmer whose easygoing manner hid a tenacious, razor-sharp mind. He was dressed for work in his gray suit—the same suit he’d been wearing the day they met.

That had been last year at the annual state medical society convention. Doug had been working the GEM Pharma booth in the exhibit area. Nadia had wandered by with her shoulder bag and her laptop, interested because she knew Dr. Monnet had left his teaching position to co-found the company. She remembered the bolt of electricity that had shot through her when Doug glanced up and smiled. She hadn’t meant to stop, but now she had no choice—those eyes, that thick sandy hair… A pheromonal cloud enveloped her, drawing her in…