“No!” said Fareed. “Gregory, don’t do that.” He turned and looked up at Gregory. Gregory didn’t understand this wariness. Gregory was fearless, and had been for so long he possessed no root understanding of Fareed’s apprehension at all. “Don’t let her get close to you,” Fareed said. “Not until I know more about her. Will you agree?”

Gregory was staring at him in silence.

“Gregory, I don’t want her to see any one of us up close.”

Again, Gregory shrugged. “Very well,” he said.

“And there’s another aspect to it,” said Fareed.

“I’m listening.”

“She petitions to see you constantly. She’s been turned down at least four or five times every year since she came to work for you. Yet she keeps petitioning, arguing she has a grant proposal for your eyes only.”

“Well, that’s not surprising. They all want to meet the captain of the ship. They all want to be invited for supper in the captain’s cabin.”

“No, it’s more than that.”

Fareed brought up a series of group photographs with a few clicks of the keys. “The woman’s been stalking you for years. If you look here, she’s in every single one of these pictures.”

“But those were press conferences,” said Gregory. “Lots of the different staff attended, made remarks, reported on recent developments.”

“No, you don’t understand. She’s in every picture, and not with the staff but with the press. She’s trying to get close to you, to see you. I think she may well be trying to get some sample of your DNA.”

“Fareed, I think your suspicions are running away with you. It would be quite impossible for her to do that.”

“Not so sure.”

Fareed enlarged the latest group shot of reporters gathered for a precious few minutes with the head of Collingsworth Pharmaceuticals. And there she was, in the front row of those holding microphones, recording equipment, steno pads, a tall woman in a dark jacket and long skirt, her wavy brown hair loose but carefully groomed as it hung behind her shoulders, the long gold streak in her hair quite prominent, her secretive and probing eyes fixed on Gregory, nothing visible in her hand but an iPhone.

“She’s photographing you, of course.”

“They all are,” said Gregory. “Fareed, my company investigates every single person working anywhere, Paris, Zurich, Geneva, New York.”

“But look at her eyes.”

“I don’t feel it,” Gregory confessed. “She’s beautiful, intriguing, and how nice for her, and for those who know her, and for me if she’s doing good work.”

Fareed went silent. But as he stared at the dark focused expression on the woman’s face, he shuddered.

“I don’t think…”

“Don’t think what?”

“I don’t think she’s human.”

“What do you mean? She’s one of us?”