Forbes glanced at his watch, then neatly folded the paper and replaced the cap on his thermos of tea. Just as he started the engine, he saw his man emerge from the entrance of the Center. The squat bald man glanced to either side as if being followed—probably, Forbes thought, a habit left over from from his life as an Eastern bloc scientist—before turning down the sidewalk and heading for his car.

Forbes eased his own car out of the parking spot and slowly drove past his mark, knowing he would catch up with him again a few blocks later.

23 - Vancouver, Canada

23

Vancouver, Canada

Impatiently, Kilburn checked his watch again. Nearly six P.M. He’d been waiting five hours to hear back from Ellen Horton’s boss about releasing the Oraloxin study samples. Five hours that Parminder Singh didn’t have to spare.

Kilburn had checked on her status every hour at St. Michael’s ICU. At each visit, the relentless band of red had inched its way up her arm to the point where it now extended past her shoulder.

He headed back to the nurses’ station and reached for the phone to call SeptoMed for the fourth time, when he heard his name being paged. “Dr. Kilburn, you have a call waiting on extension 26,” the voice chimed.

He broke off his incompletely dialed call and pressed in the extension. “Dr. Kilbum,” he said.

“Ah, Dr. Kilburn, I’m so sorry to have kept you waiting,” the man said breezily. “I am Dr. Luc Martineau with R-and-D at SeptoMed. I work with Ellen Horton and the Oraloxin team. She told me that you and she were classmates at medical school.”

“Yeah,” Kilburn said, unwilling to draw out the pleasantries. “Dr. Martineau, I’m sure Ellen also told you about our case of necrotizing fasciitis.”

“Absolutely,” Martineau said gravely. “She tells me it is resistant to every antibiotic available.” He exhaled heavily into Kilburn’s earpiece. “It’s been a long time since I have been anything but a paper-pusher, but I vaguely remember that group-A strep used to be universally susceptible to all antibiotics.”

“‘Used to be’ being the operative words,” Kilburn sighed. “As I told Ellen, we’ve completely run out of options.”

“So you would like to try Oraloxin now?” Martineau asked in a level tone.

“It’s most certainly her last hope.”

There was a long silence on the line. “Graham, Ellen clearly holds you in the highest regard,” he said softly. “Forgive me for asking, but how does an experimental medication under evaluation—not yet approved, mind you—for an entirely different infection offer any hope to your patient?”