When the head of security quickly called Berman and said he could “deal with it,” Berman had reluctantly acquiesced. Berman paid people handsomely to take care of problems like this. The security chief had told him not to worry; there was no chance of the incident being deemed anything other than an accident; he could deal with that end of the matter, too, if it came to it.

Later, Berman had heard that Pia was involved in a car accident on that same road, and he quickly deduced that she was in the vehicle with the doctor racing after the cyclist. Berman knew it was Pia who had found the runner who had gone down, and she had asked Mariel Spallek a lot of questions about it, but he convinced himself then that he had nothing to worry about. This time, he wasn’t so sure. Still, he found that he was very glad Pia was alive, because he felt the unfinished business he had with the woman trumped any minor threat she might pose.

More than anything else, Berman wanted to redeem his masculinity with her. At his house, when she had essentially invited herself to dinner, her seductiveness had driven him wild. The fact that he had passed out like some immature teenager was a monumental blow to his ego and self-image. When she was better and out of the hospital he wanted to make up for the lost opportunity, especially replaying in his mind her exotic and erotic dance. As far as her curious streak was concerned, he was confident he could deal with that himself, but in his own way. After all, he had dealt with Whitney and Mariel without a problem after he’d gotten tired of their personal favors.

Berman rubbed his eyes and drank cold coffee from a cup that had been filled about three hours previously. The thought occurred to him that perhaps these apparent cardiac arrests were just anomalies, one-off events that couldn’t be explained and would even out statistically. If that was the case, Berman thought he would be consumed by anxiety waiting for the next one. Berman resolved to have the trainers threaten the subjects more convincingly to make sure they never went out alone, and to have the scofflaws punished more seriously, so that if such medical disasters did reoccur, no one would find out about them to draw attention to Nano.

Berman was snapped out of his troubled musings by Whitney Jones, who suddenly shook him hard by the shoulder. She’d slipped into the lab unseen and unheard by Berman.

“Mr. Berman, are you okay? You look like you’re fading.”

“No, Whitney, I’m fine. Where did you come from? What are you doing still up?”