Desmond turned this information over in his mind. He had no doubt that Rapture Therapeutics was a large part of the puzzle. It was, after all, their employee—Gunter Thorne—he’d found dead in his hotel room.

Maybe the answers would come tomorrow, at the meeting.

He closed the Rapture Therapeutics site and returned to the web search he’d done on himself. But the remaining links were of no help. He had no social media presence, and the other links were just articles about companies he was involved in or videos of him speaking at conferences or appearing in video interviews. His entire life seemed to be limited to his professional involvement in high-tech startups.

Next he did an internet search for Peyton Shaw. When he had called her that morning, she had known who he was. If he could find out who she was, and how she knew him, it might give him a clue to his own identity.

He learned that she was a leading field epidemiologist for the CDC. That was interesting. Was she somehow involved with Rapture Therapeutics? It seemed unlikely; her focus was infectious diseases.

He pulled up a video of Peyton Shaw giving a speech at the American Public Health Summit a few months before. She appeared on his screen, standing on a wide stage with a white background. Her white skin was silky smooth, her hair dark brown and shoulder length. She was clearly of European descent, but Desmond guessed there was an East Asian somewhere in her immediate family tree. She was thin and moved about the stage easily, with the grace of someone who did yoga or danced regularly.

It was her eyes that Desmond focused on, however. They were large and bright and radiated an indescribable quality that he found instantly captivating. She wasn’t gorgeous, not a woman who would turn heads, but as he watched her, he was irresistibly drawn to her. She possessed that certain charm that comes from confidence and being comfortable in one’s own skin. And as she spoke, he realized something else: she was incredibly intelligent. Desmond didn’t know what type of woman he had dated before, but if he were to choose at that moment, it would be someone like Peyton Shaw.

On the projection screen behind her, an image appeared of a field hospital in a rural, tropical area—likely somewhere in the third world.

“Humanity is fighting a war,” she said to an unseen audience. “It is a global war—a war that has raged since our ancestors took their first steps. It may never end. This war has no borders, no treaties, no ceasefire. Our enemy lives among us. It is invisible, immortal, always adapting—and testing our defenses for weakness.

“It strikes when we least expect it. It kills and maims indiscriminately. It will attack any person, of any nation, race, or religion. Our immortal enemy is in this room. It is inside you. And me. That enemy is the pathogens that each and every one of us carries.