“I wouldn’t know,” Lou said. “I’m here and not with him like I should be.”

“You two were running in the mountains when he fell. You do a lot of that trail running?”

They had to have seen Cap’s medical record. So much for HIPAA and patient confidentiality.

On absolute red alert, Lou merely nodded.

“I’ve been thinking about trying trail running myself,” McCall went on. “It’s a good workout, huh?”

“Go ask Cap,” Lou said. “Look, is this part where you guys act nice to me? We develop a rapport and I cave in? I’ve seen enough cop shows to know this act. Well, it’s not going to work. First of all, I don’t know anything that would be of interest to you. Second of all, I haven’t done anything wrong, and I don’t belong here. Give me a phone and let me call a lawyer.”

“Where are you staying in Atlanta?” McCall asked.

Lou gave them the name of a hotel, but said he did not know the address.

“When did you get here?”

“You mean this time? Five days ago.”

These two were clearly empowered to trample on civil rights if it suited their purpose.

“You right-handed or left?” Vaill asked.

“What has that got to do with anything? Okay, okay. I’m right. Now, what in the hell is this all about?”

Vaill and McCall were looking intently at his eyes. Suddenly Lou recalled a book he had read on neurophysiology that included a section on using eye movements to separate truth from lies. According to the authors, if a subject were stating a fact, his eyes tended to drift or flick to the right. If he were making up a story, it was more likely for them to move left, unless they were left-handed, in which case the telltale movements were reversed. The question about his hand preference strongly suggested Vaill and McCall were aware of that tidbit—probably from interrogation 101 in agent school. Now, by asking simple, easy-to-answer questions, they were establishing a baseline by which they could judge Lou’s physical response to telling the truth.

He sensed, correctly, that the softball questions were about to end.

“Did someone give you the bacteriophage theory?” Vaill asked.

Jesus!

For a few seconds Lou couldn’t breathe. Who in the hell were these guys? He half expected them to begin asking about Arlene Silver, his fourth-grade girlfriend.

“I came up with it myself,” he said as quickly and evenly as he could.

Humphrey! They have to be after him.

He tried to control his eye movements, but suspected he hadn’t succeeded.

Meanwhile, McCall’s expression gave Lou the feeling that this was his favorite part of the job.

“You’re going to stop lying to us, doctor,” the agent said. “Believe me, it’s not the right way to go.”