“It’s a little thin for my sea-level tastes,” said Pia. “But it is clean and crisp.” Usually she would agree with him more enthusiastically, but today she didn’t want to waste time on pleasantries, so she launched right in, filling Paul in on what had happened the night before. The only omission she made was not confessing to using the Temazepam capsules she’d gotten from Paul on the unwitting Berman, saying instead simply that he got drunk and passed out. As she spoke, she acknowledged to herself that her suspicions about Nano depended on circumstantial evidence: the disappearance of the blood sample, Mariel showing up with armed guards at the ER, the level of Nano’s security, the odd cyclists, and the Chinese runner’s strange illness and miraculous recovery.

When she finished talking about Nano and the fact that she’d learned absolutely nothing at Berman’s house, Pia went back two years and told Paul a bit about the episode surrounding the deaths of Rothman and Yamamoto at Columbia and some of her part in uncovering the truth about them, and how that effort had nearly cost her her life. She was much more scant with the details than she had been talking about her visit to Berman’s house. By the time she finished, she was out of breath from talking so much while walking hard. The hiking was easy for Paul, and he was obviously thinking about what he was hearing as evidenced by a few pointed questions. After a couple of minutes’ contemplation after she was finished, he spoke up.

“So let me be blunt, because that’s the way I am, okay? There are two possibilities that I see. One, you have a well-tuned instinct for sensing trouble and a very good analytical mind that can think your way through evidence and see the way to a solution. And from what you’ve told me, you’re brave enough to follow it up. Or foolish enough to try.”

“If that all is one,” said Pia. “What’s two?”

“That you are a bit crazy,” said Paul. “I mean, no offense. Are you offended?” Paul looked over at Pia, whose face was impassive. “I guess you’re not offended. Good. Because actually I don’t think you are crazy. Dogged is a better word. Also clairvoyant. From what you just described, you were the only one who thought anything was amiss for a long time following the deaths at Columbia, isn’t that right?”

“Yes. No one believed me. I felt like a Cassandra. It seemed so obvious to me.”

“Okay, well, I believe you. I’m not normally one for conspiracy theories, but there is definitely something strange about Nano, based on what I saw in the ER and what you have told me. So what are you going to do about it now that you have flamed out at your boss’s mansion?”