Pia plunged into the woods. It had been a dry spring so far, and a fine dust hung in the air as small branches and twigs snapped underfoot. The undergrowth thickened as Pia made her way deeper into the trees, and she fended off branches with her forearms and got some scratches for her trouble. After just five minutes she felt she could have been in the middle of nowhere. Ahead, the trees were taller and fuller and she had a hard time seeing down into the valley-like depression where Nano was situated. As Pia strained for a look ahead, she walked straight into a dark-green, thin-mesh chickenwire fence, scraping her nose in the process.

“Dammit!” Pia put her hand to her face but there was no blood. Now that she focused on what was right in front of her, she could see the nearly invisible fence. A narrow trench had been dug and it extended to the left and right, as far as she could see, so that the fence went into the ground. Brown metal stanchions were set into the ground at fifteen- to twenty-foot intervals, and the ten-foot-high fence was strung between them. Pia shook it—it was taut and strong, possibly coated with a dark green material that might have been a nanotechnology product. She heard a sound, and straight ahead on the opposite side of the fence she saw a young deer standing stock-still, staring right at her.

“No need to be afraid,” Pia said. “Neither one of us is getting through this fence.”

So Nano had a second, outer perimeter barrier significantly beyond the imposing concertina wire–topped chain-link fence closer in. Pia had no reason to believe this new barrier didn’t run all the way around the facility except, obviously, at the main gate. It was yet another example of how seriously Nano took security. It also changed Pia’s estimate for how long it would take her to walk around the complex.

Pia’s iPhone sounded and she gasped. Running into the unexpected fence had made her jittery, and she didn’t expect a phone call while in the woods. She released the unit from the strap around her arm and recognized Paul Caldwell’s number on the screen. Pia’s hopes were raised—perhaps he’d found out something useful from tests on the runner’s blood.

“Pia?”

“Paul, yes, what can you tell me?”

“Pia, I can hardly hear you, it’s a bad connection. Listen . . .”

Pia could hear nothing. She turned and headed back toward the road where she had entered the woods. She could hear Paul’s voice trailing in and out when the line beeped a couple of times, and the call was lost. Reaching the road, Pia waited for Paul to redial—she wanted to avoid the exasperating situation when both parties try to call the other when a connection is lost. She hoped Paul wasn’t waiting for her.

Her phone rang again.

“Paul?”