“He’ll explain later,” Paul finished the sentence.

Gamay feigned a look of astonishment.

“You’re positively psychic at times.”

He put his index finger to his temple.

“My mystic powers are telling me that you are about to offer me the rest of your strawberry frappe.”

Gamay pushed the glass across the table.

“How do you think we should approach this thing with Kane out of the picture?”

“You could try using your NUMA bona fides to leverage a tour of the place.”

“I thought of that. The NUMA connection might get me in the front door, but I don’t know if I’d get the kind of access that would do us any good.”

Paul nodded in agreement.

“You’d get the VIP treatment, a quick tour by a PR flack, a ham sandwich, and a fond good-bye. Kurt apparently wants us to take a look behind the scenes.”

“That was my impression. I need an edge, and I think I know where I can find one.”

“While you work on that edge, I’ll see if I can get you on a flight to Florida.”

Paul stopped by his office to make travel arrangements. Gamay went to the boat dock to tell her dive crew that she was leaving Scripps. She hauled her scuba gear to the dormitory room that had been provided for their stay. She called an ocean chemist colleague at the Scripps Center for Marine Biotechnology and Biomedicine. In her usual Gamay fashion, she got right to the point.

“I’m trying to wrangle an overnight stay at Bonefish Key. I remember you saying that your center has worked with them on oceanborne treatments for asthma and arthritis.”

“That’s right,” said Stu Simpson, an ocean biologist. “Most of the institutions working on this stuff share information. Bonefish Key is pretty tight, though. Have you contacted the director, Dr. Kane?”

“He’s a hard guy to track down.”

“Out in the field a lot, I’ve heard, and the place is being run by a Dr. Mayhew. I’ve met him at conferences. Not exactly Mr. Personality, but I may be able to help. Kane used to be with the Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute, in Fort Pierce, Florida, before he got some money and set up the lab at Bonefish Key. I’ve got a friend at Harbor Branch who’s a pal of Mayhew’s. He owes me. I’ll see if I can call in that marker for you.”