“Everything’s for sale, Stella,” Leland told her—but Lisa could hear the puzzlement in his voice. “It’s just a matter of finding the right price. The only question you have to ask yourself is whether you’d prefer to deal with a good customer or a skinflint.”

“If that’s what you think,” Stella responded, “then she’s definitely lied to you. God only knows what game she’s playing—I certainly don’t—but she and Miller have kept this thing between themselves for forty years. In my book, that’s a crime against humanity. If you want answers, ask her.”

That, Lisa thought, hadto be acting. It had to be a bluff, no matter how convincing it sounded.

“I have asked her,” Leland said. “She’s convinced me that she doesn’t know why Miller was taken. If you want to convince me otherwise, you’ll have to give me more than mere abuse. It might be as well to remember that I’m the only thing standing between you and a long jail sentence. I’m the only one who can get you out of this.”

“I don’t have to convince you of anything,” the young woman told him. “In fact, I hope you’re right. I hope Miller didkeep it secret, even from her. If it istrue, however unlikely that may be, she’s going to be extremely pissed when it does come out. Anything she wants to do to me, she’ll want to do to Miller ten times over. If she thinks hell has no fury now, wait till she finds out what scorn really is!”The way the captive raised her voice implied that she knew perfectly well that Lisa was listening, and that she was talking to both of her interrogators, determined that if she couldn’t drive a wedge between them, she could at least sow a little unhealthy confusion.

“I’m sure that’s right,” Leland said, having carefully lowered the volume of his voice, perhaps to imply that he was prepared to deal confidentially. “My people are pretty sure that she doesn’t know—although I might be able to change their minds if you explain to me why you think otherwise. So why don’t you let me in on the secret, so that we can figure out exactly what it might be worth?”

“To you,” Stella Filisetti replied, not bothering to whisper, “it’s not worth a damn thing. And that bitch outside the door, whether she’s a rat or just a fool, probably isn’t going to profit from it now. To us, it’s worth everything.More than anything the law can throw at us once we’ve given it to the rightpeople. So you and Friemann can go fuck yourselves—or each other, if you have the stomach for it. You’re getting nothing out of me. Even if I knew where Miller is, I wouldn’t tell you. You can hurt me as badly as you like, but all you’ll get is wasted time.”

Leland was silent. His script had been blown apart. If Stella’s lying, Lisa thought, she’s much better at it than her amateur status suggests. If she’s playing a game, she has far more skill than the average panicky interrogatee. If there really is a riddle to be solved, it isn’t going to be easy to unravel, even though it doesn’t need a genius to figure out what it must be that she thinks Morgan has discovered.

After a further minute, Leland emerged from the room and closed the door behind him. “Better let her consider her situation for a while,” he murmured. “Could be that the other one will be a little saner. After all, she’s never screwed your crafty boyfriend.”

His tone was neutral, but Lisa could tell that Stella Filisetti had got through to him. Whatever trust Leland had had in her had evaporated. From now on, she was a suspect in his eyes too. She wondered whether it was time to call for help, but decided after a moment’s hesitation that duty could wait a little longer. After all, Leland could be right. The Real Woman presumably hadn’t ever screwed the aforementioned crafty boyfriend, and even Lisa had to admit that that might make her just a little bit saner than someone who had.

“But this time,” Leland added, “it’s my turn to go first.”

Second Interlude

DISTURBIRG SYMPTOMS

The dog riots of 2010 were the closest Lisa ever came to “frontline policing.” She was called to the university to serve as an adviser to the chief inspector, David Kenneally. What she had in mind as she traveled out in one of the vans was a cozy situation way behind enemy lines, from which she could offer expert judgment as to the wise deployment of the uniformed officers. Kenneally had other ideas; although he had taken a training course in Advanced Negotiating Skills, he did not feel that what he had been taught was particularly relevant to the situation.

Presumably, the chief inspector would have felt far more confident if a lone gunman had taken hostages, or if some overstressed undergraduate were sitting atop the biology building threatening to jump, but Lisa had little sympathy for his plight. If Advanced Negotiating Skills didn’t cover ugly mobs whose members had studied strategy and tactics by watching videotapes of cult activity in Jerusalem, Tokyo, and New York in 1999 and 2000, what on earth was the use of them in the twenty-first century?

“Why me?” Lisa asked when Kenneally told her he wanted her right beside him when he went to meet the notional leader of the demonstration.

“You know more about their concerns than anyone else on my staff does,” he informed her.

“Only because I was once what they’dcall a professional torturer,” Lisa pointed out. “I even used to practice my dark artistry on this very site. I never worked with dogs, but I think the temperature out there’s already a little too high to encourage nice distinctions. Right now, they’re not likely to concede that being a mere mass murderer of mice is the next best thing to saintly innocence.”

“We won’t have to discuss your credentials with the demonstrators,” Kenneally informed her dismissively. “You have seen this videotape they’re up in arms about, I take it?”

Lisa had to admit that she had. “The voice-over is a pack of lies,” she said. “Okay, so the dogs in the first sequence are more than a little disoriented, and maybe more than a little distressed, but there’s no way their symptoms were caused by prion proteins or by any prion-producing autoimmune reaction. The labs have mouse models of classic CJD and at least three of its variants, but nobody makes dog models of anyhuman disease. The second lot are notbeing injected with immunosuppressant viruses for the sake of germ-warfare research, and the puppies being gassed in the final sequence are being put down humanely in order that researchers can study the development of a disease that kills thousands of pets and working dogs every year, with a view to finding a cure. Nor are any of the dogs British-born—ever since the 2000 ban on the breeding of domestic dogs for research purposes, the university has imported the very few dogs it needs from France. The tape’s pure black propaganda from beginning to end.”

“That’s exactly what I need, you see,” the chief inspector told her. “The calm voice of sanity.”

“But they’re not going to listen to the calm voice of sanity,” Lisa told him. “That’s not the way this kind of game is played. Even if the students who routinely use the building are steering clear, there’s bound to be somebody out there who’ll recognize me and tip them off. To them, I’ll just be one more vivisectionist plugging the party line. Believe me, sir, they hate police scientists almost as intensely as they hate company-funded research workers.”

“You speak their language,” Kenneally insisted.

“Maybe—but with an inflection that immediately marks me as an enemy,” she protested. “You might as well ask Chan to talk to them.” Chan was also in the van, as was one of the campus security guards.

“Dr. Friemann’s right,” Chan put in. “If it is not safe for me to go out, it is not safe for her.”