“I came to see how you were doing,” Bacon said.

“You have the cameras and the screens. How do you think I’m doing?”

“The latest pass?”

“The mice are dead. All dead.”

“Sorry to hear that. You look exhausted. Why don’t you get some rest?”

“Scientists always believe that the next experiment is going to do it.”

“I understand,” Bacon said with a tense smile. “That which is attained without conflict or strife is rarely worth attainment at all.”

“True enough.”

Kazimi recognized the quote from Lancaster Hill’s manifesto, but kept that fact to himself. He had no desire to share his views on Hill’s misguided thinking with a zealot like Bacon. “Tell me about the situation,” Bacon said.

“Despite this failure, I believe my theories of competitive inhibition have merit,” he said.

“I admire your commitment. More mice have arrived. You’re certain you don’t need our scientist?”

Kazimi had balanced the loss of what little privacy and mobility he had against the possibility that the microbiologists working for Bacon could help him succeed where they had continued to fail.

“Not yet,” he replied.

As he continued gazing out at the slate-gray ocean, Kazimi found himself thinking about the mystery man of his task force, Humphrey Miller.

Of all those on the team he had created, Miller seemed to be the most inventive, and the most outside the box. The irony was that they had never met face-to-face or even spoken to each other. Miller had connected with him some years ago via an Internet forum. After a stream of e-mails and exchanges of information, Kazimi still hardly knew the man at all. Miller had written a number of amazing papers, but had not published any of them as far as he could tell. His name, if indeed it was his name at all, was not associated with any university faculty. Still, his brilliance and creativity were unquestioned.

The mystery man.

Over the month or two before he was kidnapped, Kazimi had lost patience with Humphrey Miller persistently blaring the trumpet of his bacteriophage theory. In fact, although his deal with Bacon included the disclosure of his entire online team, he had omitted Miller as not being relevant. Now, as he endured one failure after another, he considered sharing Miller’s offbeat approach to the Janus conundrum with Bacon. The last thing Kazimi wanted was to put Miller, or anyone else, in harm’s way. But the situation was growing desperate. The answer as always would be to pray to Allah for clarity and vision.

“Okay, then,” Bacon was saying. “Continue as you are. And if there is anything you require, do not hesitate to ask. But I remind you, time is growing short.”

He turned to leave.