Morgan leads us along the hall, collects Lorenzo from his office, and pauses with his nose wrinkled. “What’s that smell?” he says.

“I don’t smell anything,” Lorenzo says flatly, but his eyes are smiling at me.

Lin plays along. “Neither do I.”

“Hmph. Well, let’s get to it, people. Lots of ground to cover if we’re going to meet our deadline.”

This is the first I’ve heard about a deadline, and any respect I might have had for Morgan drops down another several notches. He can’t possibly know we’ve already found the Wernicke cure, and I wonder what he’s promised the president. It’s not as if we’re baking a goddamned cake.

“What deadline?” I say.

Morgan hesitates, as if he’s inventing a story to tell us. When he finally speaks, it sounds like a well-rehearsed line. “The president is due to travel to France at the end of June, for the G20 summit. He needs his brother.”

“This is May,” I tell him. “I thought we had more time. The contract didn’t say anything—”

But he cuts me off. “You didn’t really read your contract, Dr. McClellan. If you had, you would have seen a clear deadline of June twenty-fourth, one week before the president flies to Europe. Any more questions?”

“We’re scientists,” I say. “We don’t do deadlines.”

Lorenzo, who has been quiet up until now, shuts his office door. “I’ll explain it to them later, Morgan. Let’s get on with the admin shit so we can start working on your problem.”

I flash him a look of disbelief, as does Lin, but Lorenzo shakes his head. “Later,” he mouths.

Our first stop is the security office, a series of rooms and cubicles staffed by twenty men. It isn’t in our section of the building, which is unpopulated except for Lorenzo, Lin, and myself, but one floor down. There are no windows here, not even on the main door, which Morgan unlocked by inserting a card from the lanyard around his neck into the reader.

“We’re all about security,” he says, leading us through the sea of computers and surveillance equipment toward one of the smaller cubicles.

Lin and I exchange a look.

“Security for what?” I ask.

Morgan doesn’t answer, but I know he’s heard me.

I repeat the question.

“Just general security, Dr. McClellan. Not something you need to worry about.” He turns to the man in the cubicle. “We’ll need card keys for my team, Jack.” Again with the “my.”