Without another word, Pia and George ducked into the Black building. The security man knew Pia well and didn’t bat an eye. Pia used her key to open the main door, a key Spaulding had not asked for. The logbook was back where she expected it would be, in Spaulding’s desk. Inside the biosafety unit she used Rothman’s spare key from his office to open the storage locker. They worked quickly and efficiently.

George wouldn’t have wanted a physician to check his blood pressure at any point during the visit, but Pia seemed icy cool and focused.

Pia had George read out to her how many of each sample were recorded in the logbook while she counted the actual samples. As Pia suspected, there were three samples missing from the storage freezer, at least according to the book. There were supposed to be thirty samples of the zero-gravity salmonella typhi, divided evenly between what was called alpha S. typhi and beta S. typhi. One of the missing samples was from the beta salmonella strain and the other two were the alpha strain, which was the strain that had infected Rothman and Yamamoto. Out in the main part of the unit near the hoods, Pia found a small collection of six labeled petri dishes in the incubator. Each was labeled with either an alpha or a beta.

After Pia and George had left the biosafety unit and removed their protective clothing, Pia found two of the same type of stoppered containers used in the storage facility without labels sitting next to Spaulding’s sink.

After replacing the logbook and the spare key, Pia said to George, “Okay, we’re done.”

George’s heart rate calmed down once they had exited the lab without incident.

“What does all this mean, Pia?” George asked as they rode down in the elevator.

“I don’t know,” Pia admitted. “It might not mean anything, but information is information. What I’d like to do is go over the discrepancies with Spaulding if I can figure out how.”

“Good luck with that,” George said.

Pia and George fought their way through the weather back to the dorm. Though he was exhausted, George felt strangely exhilarated. He and Pia had actually worked together. George knew he’d been useful and was acutely sensitive to Pia’s gestures, like the way she had put her hand on the small of his back to encourage him to precede her through the outer dorm door. She was obviously pleased with what they had accomplished. They stopped in the lobby and pushed the elevator button. Both cars were on upper floors.

Pia stared at the elevator’s slow-moving floor indicator. George cleared his throat to speak, but Pia didn’t want to hear what he had to say. She just wanted to get to her bed and try to sleep.