“I think I’ve found us an ally,” I say.

“Yeah?”

“Over there. At the security desk.”

Lorenzo stretches his neck to see over the rest of the crowd. “You’re kidding.”

Petroski might not be the brightest bulb in the box, but he’s got two qualities I want: he’s scared as shit for his daughter, and he’s strong. That he wears a uniform and carries a ring of keys on his belt doesn’t hurt.

“Take a look around, Enzo,” I say. “These guys have been working around the clock. They’re dead tired.” As I say this, three men, each of them looking to be in his forties, file out of the lab, escorted by a single soldier.

“Haven’t seen my kids in a week,” one complains.

“Kids?” another says. “My kids are okay with it. My wife, on the other hand—”

“If I don’t get some food and some z’s, I’m gonna be toast tomorrow.” The third man looks as if he’s about to fall asleep on his feet.

“See what I mean?” I say, as another five worker bees signal they’re ready to hit the hay. “All we need to do is wait.”

“Wrong, Gianna.” Lorenzo looks me over. “What you need to do is get some sleep. At least for a couple of hours.”

I have as much chance of sleeping as I do of winning a Nobel Prize, but he’s right. I’ve run into the fatigue wall at full speed, and my next lab task requires absolute alertness. “Two hours. Max. Assuming Morgan is staying the night.”

“He will be. Check with your new pal on the way out.” Lorenzo cracks a smile. “And don’t flirt too much. I’m the jealous type.” From the shelf behind him, he takes one of the tablets, swipes and taps a few times with those absurdly long, but elegant, fingers, and hands it to me. “A little light reading for you.”

I read the title on the screen. “Comparative Neuroanatomy of Primates? You call this light?”

“In the literal sense. The iPad weighs less than a pound.”

“How much does the book weigh?”

“It’s about five hundred pages. You want chapters seven and eight.” He must see the unspoken questions in my eyes, because he keeps going. “Look, I’d do it, but I’d be starting from zero. Besides, I can’t read that shit and set up everything down here at the same time. So brush up on your brain science, okay?” He turns to the computer behind him, pulls out the keyboard, and starts filling in a lab animal requisition form after consulting a chart of available subjects. In the space for the identification number, he types 413, then moves down the page to an empty block and starts hunting and pecking again. I watch him type Sedation, trepanation, and intracranial injection of experimental serum Wernicke 5.2.