As if on cue, without a knock, the room door opened and Ivan Puchalsky strode in, his white knee-length coat so starched it looked as if it could stand up on its own. He greeted Lou and Cap, and may or may not have noticed that he was not offered a handshake by either man.

“So,” he said, “word from the nurses is that you are continuing to improve. That’s excellent.”

“Thanks,” Cap said.

“So, Dr. Welcome, your message said it was urgent that I meet you here. I have ID rounds in a few minutes, so this really must be brief.”

“Oh, it will be brief,” Cap said. “I promise you that. Doctor, do you know a man named Douglas Bacon?”

Puchalsky’s blank expression may have been legit.

“I’m afraid I don’t,” he said.

“No matter,” Cap went on. “He knows you, and that’s what counts. In fact, in documents signed under oath by him, he names you as one of those hospital employees scattered around the country who was recruited by the group he directed—a group calling themselves the Society of One Hundred Neighbors.”

“I don’t understand.”

But Lou could tell now that he did.

“You were paid and paid handsomely to use your expertise in nosocomial disease,” Lou said, “to slowly introduce the Janus strain, also known as the Doomsday Germ into this hospital.”

“That’s ridiculous. Why would I ever do something like that?”

“The list of possible reasons starts with a boatload of money, and moves on through your suddenly mushrooming importance in the field of hospital-based infection. Bacon says they had no trouble enlisting your services, either—especially when they needed you to help them cure the germ after it began mutating. So let’s add immortality and worldwide fame to our list. Then we should probably include the multiple donations on record that you’ve made to a number of right-leaning organizations, some of which are more or less recruitment fronts for One Hundred Neighbors.”

Puchalsky, his cheeks flushed, could only glare at him.

“You took my leg,” Cap said with far less anger in his voice than the man deserved. “I’d like to meet the person who led you in your Hippocratic Oath, or whatever oath doctors take wherever you came from. Now, get out of my room. I think you’ll find a couple of our friends from the FBI waiting for you just outside the door. I’m looking forward to testifying against you in court.”

Puchalsky looked as if he were about to spit. Then he turned on his heels and stalked out the door.

Lou could see Chuck McCall in the hall waiting for him, handcuffs dangling.

“We’ll take it from here, Lou,” he called out.