TONI GALLO thought she would be out of work by lunchtime.

She looked around her office. She had not been here long. She had only just begun to make the place her own. On the desk was a photograph of her with her mother and her sister, Bella, taken a few years ago when Mother was in good health. Beside it was her battered old dictionary- she had never been able to spell. Just last week she had hung on the wall a picture of herself in her police constable's uniform, taken seventeen years ago, looking young and eager.

She could hardly believe she had already lost this job.

She now knew what Michael Ross had done. He had devised a clever and elaborate way of getting around all her security precautions. He had found the weaknesses and exploited them. There was no one to blame but herself.

She had not known this two hours ago, when she had phoned Stanley Oxenford, chairman and majority shareholder in Oxenford Medical.

She had been dreading the call. She had to give him the worst possible news, and take the blame. She steeled herself for his disappointment, indignation, or perhaps rage.

He had said, "Are you all right?"

She almost cried. She had not anticipated that his first thought would be for her welfare. She did not deserve such kindness. "I'm fine," she said. "We all put on bunny suits before we went into the house."

"But you must be exhausted."

"I snatched an hour's sleep at around five."

"Good," Stanley said, and briskly moved on. "I know Michael Ross. Quiet chap, about thirty, been with us for a few years-an experienced technician. How the hell did this happen?"

"I found a dead rabbit in his garden shed. I think he brought home a laboratory animal and it bit him."

"I doubt it," Stanley said crisply. "More likely he cut himself with a contaminated knife. Even experienced people may get careless. The rabbit is probably a normal pet that starved after Michael fell ill."

Toni wished she could pretend to believe that, but she had to give her boss the facts. "The rabbit was in an improvised biosafety cabinet," she argued.

"I still doubt it. Michael can't have been working alone, in BSL4. 1 ven if his buddy wasn't looking, there are television cameras in every room-he couldn't have stolen a rabbit without being seen on the monitors. I hen he had to pass several security guards on the way out-they would have noticed if he were carrying a rabbit. Finally, the scientists working in the lab the following morning would have realized immediately that an animal was missing. They might not be able to tell the difference between one rabbit and another, but they certainly know how many there are in the experiment."

Early though it was, his brain had fired up like the VI2 engine in his Ferrari, Toni thought. But he was wrong. "I put all those security barriers in place," she said. "And I'm telling you that no system is perfect."

"You're right, of course." If you gave him good arguments, he could back down alarmingly fast. "I presume we have video footage of the last time Michael was in BSL4?"

"Next thing on my checklist."

"I'll be there at about eight. Have some answers for me then, please."

"One more thing. As soon as the staff begin arriving, rumors will sprcad. May I tell people that you'll be making an announcement?"

"Good point. I'll speak to everyone in the Great Hall at, say, nine-thirty." The grand entrance hall of the old house was the biggest room in the building, always used for large meetings.

Toni had then summoned Susan Mackintosh, one of the security guards, a pretty girl in her twenties with a boyish haircut and a pierced eyebrow. Susan immediately noticed the picture on the wall. "You look good in a uniform," she said.

"Thanks. I realize you're due to go off duty, but I need a woman for this job."

Susan raised an eyebrow flirtatiously. "I know the feeling."

Toni recalled the company Christmas party, last Friday. Susan had dressed like John Travolta in the movie Grease, with slicked hair, drainpipe jeans, and the kind of crepe-soled shoes known in Glasgow as brothel creepers. She had asked Toni to dance. Toni had smiled warmly and said, "I don't think so." A little later, after a few more drinks, Susan had asked her if she slept with men. "Not as much as I'd like," Toni had said.

Toni was flattered that someone so young and pretty was attracted to her, but she pretended not to notice. "I need you to stop all employees as they arrive. Set up a desk in the Great Hall, and don't let them go to their offices or labs until you've spoken to them."

"What should I say?"

"Tell them there's been a virus security breach, and Professor Oxenford is going to give them a full briefing this morning. Be calm and reassuring, but don't go into detail-best leave that to Stanley."

"Okay."

"Then ask them when they last saw Michael Ross. Some will have been asked that question over the phone last night, but only those certified for BSL4, and it does no harm to double-check. If anyone has seen him since he left here on Sunday two weeks ago, tell me immediately."

"Okay."

Toni had a delicate question to ask, and she hesitated, then just came out with it. "Do you think Michael was gay?"

"Not actively."

Are you sure?

"Inverburn is a small town. There are two gay pubs, a club, a couple of restaurants, a church… I know all those places and I've never seen him in any of them."

"Okay. I hope you don't mind my assuming you'd know, just because…"

"It's all right." Susan smiled and gave Toni a direct look. "You'll have to work harder than that to offend me."

"Thanks."

That was almost two hours ago. Toni had spent most of the time since then viewing video footage of Michael Ross on his last visit to BSL4. She now had the answers Stanley wanted. She was going to tell him what had happened, and then he would probably ask for her resignation.

She recalled her first meeting with Stanley. She had been at the lowest point of her entire life. She was pretending to be a freelance security consultant, but she had no clients. Her partner of eight years, Frank, had left her. And her mother was becoming senile. Toni had felt like Job after he was forsaken by God.

Stanley had summoned her to his office and offered her a short-term contract. He had invented a drug so valuable that he feared he might be the target of industrial espionage. He wanted her to check. She had not told him it was her first real assignment.

After combing the premises for listening devices, she had looked for signs that key employees were living above their means. No one was spying on Oxenford Medical, as it turned out-but, to her dismay, she discovered that Stanley's son, Kit, was stealing from the company.

She was shocked. Kit had struck her as charming and untrustworthy; but what kind of man robs his own father? "The old bugger can afford it, he's got plenty," Kit said carelessly; and Toni knew, from her years with the police, that there was nothing profound about wickedness-criminals were just shallow, greedy people with inadequate excuses.

Kit had tried to persuade her to hush it up. He promised never to do it again if Toni would keep quiet this time. She was tempted: she did not want to tell a recently bereaved man that his son was no good. But to keep quiet would have been dishonest.

So, in the end, and with great trepidation, she had told Stanley everything.

She would never forget the look on his face. He went pale, grimaced, and said, "Aah," as if feeling a sudden internal pain. In that moment, as he struggled to master his profound emotion, she saw both his strength and his sensitivity, and she felt strongly drawn to him.

Telling him the truth had been the right decision. Her integrity had been rewarded. Stanley fired Kit and gave Toni a full-time job. For that, she would always owe him her iron loyalty. She was fiercely determined to repay his trust.