IT SEEMED like a year since Lou last sat in the library conference room of the CDC’s newly constructed Antibiotic Resistance Unit. Certainly, in terms of eventfulness, it had been. As before, he had been escorted to the room by an armed security guard and informed of a delay in Dr. Scupman’s and Dr. Banks’s schedules. While he waited for them to arrive, he once again skimmed the five-page abstract of Humphrey Miller’s thesis, the only part of the thick notebook he had chosen to bring. After hours of study, he sensed he was getting a handle on things. And what he was understanding, he liked.

Humphrey’s bacteriophages—bacterio for the target germ, and phage meaning to devour—were three of thousands of types of viruses, readily available in soil, shallow ocean water, and other ecosystems, capable of invading specific bacteria and interfering with their reproduction. The irony of a flesh-eating bacteria being eaten from within by another microorganism was not at all lost on Lou. Prior to their discovery in 1917, phages had been linked to miracle waters—rivers in India and other places with the power to cure diseases from leprosy to cholera. Only later did scientists, examining a naturally occurring treatment for dysentery, discover these “cures” were phages, feasting on and eradicating the disease-causing bacteria. Use of cultured phages to fight bacterial infections had not been without controversy, and had not at all enjoyed universal acceptance. Humphrey’s proposal would push the boundaries of what the virus could do beyond all known limits.

But Lou sensed the theory was solid, and very well might work. With time running out for Cap, it simply had to.

While Lou worried Scupman might balk at offering his professional assessment based on the five-page summary, he was equally concerned with revealing Humphrey’s identity. Humphrey had left it up to him, but they both knew that the wrong word to the wrong person might mean the end of his lab before it was even up and running.

Ten minutes later, Sam Scupman entered the conference room, followed two minutes later by Vicki Banks. Scupman was even more frazzled and unkempt than Lou remembered, and had probably not changed his knee-length lab coat since then. Lou took extra notice of the dark circles encasing the man’s green eyes. Nothing like a flesh-eating, untreatable infection to induce insomnia in a microbiologist. For her part, Banks looked as interesting and unflappable as before, with her heavy, black-framed glasses and her raven hair knotted in a bun. If there was any change in her since their last meeting, it was that she seemed less reserved than Lou remembered, and quicker with a smile.

“Dr. Welcome,” Scupman said. “Nice to see you again. You’re the one who asked that excellent Pseudomallei question.”

“Thank you for remembering.”