“So you want me to call my friend at the FAA?” Lou asked.

“I’ll be much obliged,” Jack said.

“Hey, it’s my pleasure,” Lou said. “I have a feeling that the more I help you the more I’m helping myself. I’d like nothing better than to have this case solved. It might save my job.”

“I’m leaving my office to run over to the University Hospital,” Jack said. “What if I call you back in a half hour or so?”

“Perfect,” Lou said before disconnecting.

Jack shook his head. Like everything else with this case, the information he’d gotten from Lou was both surprising and confusing. France probably was the last country Jack suspected Franconi to have visited.

After donning his coat for the second time, Jack left his office. Given the proximity of the University Hospital, he didn’t bother with his bike. It only took ten minutes by foot.

Inside the busy medical center, Jack took the elevator up to the pathology department. He was hoping that Dr. Malovar would be available. Peter Malovar was a giant in the field, and even at the age of eighty-two he was one of the sharpest pathologists Jack had ever met. Jack made it a point to go to seminars Dr. Malovar offered once a month. So when Jack had a question about pathology, he didn’t go to Bingham because Bingham’s strong point was forensics, not general pathology. Instead, Jack went to Dr. Malovar.

“The professor’s in his lab as usual,” the harried pathology department secretary said. “You know where it is?”

Jack nodded and walked down to the aged, frosted-glass door which led to what was known as “Malovar’s lair.” Jack knocked. When there was no response, he tried the door. It was unlocked. Inside, he found Dr. Malovar bent over his beloved microscope. The elderly man looked a little like Einstein with wild gray hair and a full mustache. He also had kyphotic posture as if his body had been specifically designed to bend over and peer into a microscope. Of his five senses only his hearing had deteriorated over the years.

The professor greeted Jack cursorily while hungrily eyeing the slide in his hand. He loved people to bring him problematic cases, a fact that Jack had taken advantage of on many occasions.

Jack tried to give a little history of the case as he passed the slide to the professor, but Dr. Malovar lifted his hand to quiet him. Dr. Malovar was a true detective who didn’t want anyone else’s impressions to influence his own. The aged professor replaced the slide he’d been studying with Jack’s. Without a word, he scanned it for all of one minute.

Raising his head, Dr. Malovar put a drop of oil on the slide and switched to his oil-immersion lens for higher magnification. Once again, he examined the slide for only a matter of seconds.

Dr. Malovar looked up at Jack. “Interesting!” he said, which was a high compliment coming from him. Because of his hearing problem, he spoke loudly. “There’s a small granuloma of the liver as well as the cicatrix of another. Looking at the granuloma, I think I might be seeing some merozoites, but I can’t be sure.”