He shakes his head. “It looks reversible, even easy, but I can’t do it. For one, I don’t have a lab. Second, it’s been twenty years since I’ve worked in one. What about your—” He pauses, correcting himself. “What about Lorenzo? It’s his brain baby anyway, right?”

At the word “baby,” my coffee goes down the wrong way. “Right. What about the water-solubility problem?”

Patrick actually beams. “That’s the brilliant part. It’s already water soluble, at least for our purposes. Assuming you don’t care about unwanted side effects.” He points to Lorenzo’s final work, the cognitive key that, when turned in the lock of cells in the superior temporal gyrus of the brain’s left hemisphere, will open the door to repair. Or, in the case of the anti-serum, create a room full of word chaos.

I know what Patrick means, and I don’t care about whatever ancillary problems might result from systemic application of the drug, not when we’re talking about Reverend Carl Corbin’s system. Or the president’s.

“Think he can get to it by Monday morning?” Patrick says.

“That’s soon.”

“That’s when the next all-staff meeting is scheduled for Project Wernicke. Your entire building will be at the White House.”

“What about Reverend Carl?”

Patrick nods. “Him too.”

Okay, I think. Monday. The clock on Patrick’s desk glows six four one.

Chapter Fifty-nine

FIFTY-NINE

Wicked or not, I sleep, and for three sweet, dreamless hours I don’t think about the plan, or Patrick, or Lorenzo. I don’t think about where Steven might be, or whether Del the mailman turned spy is sitting in a locked room deciding whether to talk or watch his daughters beg while Thomas works them over. I don’t think about Olivia King’s burnt stump where her hand used to be, or whether Lin and Isabel have been caught and are now on their way to a prison.

Sleep is a fantastic eraser, as long as it lasts.

With nothing but coffee in my stomach, I leave for the lab, Patrick’s notes folded up inside the powder compact I keep in my purse.

Lorenzo is in his office, making coffee.

“Want some?” he says.

“No way.” I can already feel one ulcer burning through my stomach lining. I take out the compact, open it, quickly palm the paper, and slide it across his desk. “I’ll go set things up for Mrs. Ray. Meet me downstairs when you’re ready.”

My own office is empty and dark, exactly the way I left it yesterday. I know Lin hasn’t come back. Worse, I’m sure she’s not going to come back.

So I have a plan. Hope, not so much.