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When Richards had left, Sykes leaned back in his chair "I’ent You’ll have to be satisfied with the layround, at least the part I can tell you About ten years ago, the CDC got a call from a doctor in La Paz He had four patients, all Americans, who had co, muscle pain, headache, hypoxemia The four of thele They claiotten separated frole for weeks It was sheer luck that they’d stu post run by a bunch of Franciscan friars, who’d arranged their transport to La Paz Now, hanta isn’t the common cold, but it’s not exactly rare, either, so none of this would have been : all of theanized by an outfit called Last Wish You’ve heard of theht they just took people skydiving, things like that"

"That’s what I thought, too But apparently not Of the four, one had an inoperable brain tumor, two had acute lymphocytic leukele one of them became well Not just the hanta, or whatever it was No cancer Not a trace"

Wolgast felt lost "I don’t get it"

Sykes sipped his coffee "Well, neither did anyone at the CDC But so had happened, so, le Soure it out They couldn’t even say exactly where they’d been" He leaned forward over his desk "Do you knohat the thyast shook his head

Sykes pointed at his chest, just above the breastbone "Little thing in here, between the sternum and the trachea, about the size of an acorn In most people, it’s atrophied coo your whole life not knowing you had one, unless it was diseased Nobody really knohat it does, or at least they didn’t, until they ran scans on these four patients The thymus had soed to three tinancy but it wasn’t And their iely accelerated rate of cellular regeneration And there were other benefits Remember these were cancer patients, all over fifty It was like they were teenagers again: sth and endurance, even sexual function One of the rew back a full head of hair"

"A virus did this?"

Sykes nodded "Like I said, this is the layot people downstairs who think that’s exactly what happened Sorees in subjects I can’t even spell They talk to "

"What happened to them? The four patients"

Sykes leaned back in his chair, his face darkening a little "Well, this isn’t the happiest part of the story, I’est any of thehty-six days Cerebral aneurysm, heart attack, stroke Their bodies just kind of blew a fuse"

"What about the others?"

"No one knows Disappeared without a trace, including the tour operator, who turned out to be a pretty shady character It’s likely he was actually working as a drug"I’ve probably said too s in perspective We’re not talking about curing one disease, Agent We’re talking about curing everything How long would a hu live if there were no cancer, no heart disease, no diabetes, no Alzheimer’s? And we’ve reached the point where we need, absolutely require, human test subjects Not a nice term, but there really is no other And that’s where you coet me these men"

"Why not the marshals? Isn’t this more up their alley?"

Sykes shook his head dismissively "Glorified corrections officers, if you’ll excuseso Believe me, we started there If I had a sofa I needed carried up the stairs, they’d be the first guys I’d call But for this, no"

Sykes opened the file on his desk and began to read "Bradford Joseph Wolgast, born Ashland, Oregon, Septeh honors, recruited by the Bureau but declines, accepts a graduate fellowship at Stony Brook for a PhD in political science but leaves after two years to join the Bureau After training at Quantico sent to-" He raised his eyebrows at Wolgast "-Dayton?"

Wolgast shrugged "It wasn’t very exciting"

"Well, we all do our time Two years in the sticks, a little of this, a little of that, s all around After 9/11 asks to transfer to counterterrorisned to the Denver field office Septe funds h US banks by Russian nationals, ie, the Russian Mafia, though we don’t call them that On the personal side: no political affiliations, no memberships, doesn’t even subscribe to the newspaper Parents deceased Dates a little but no steady girlfriends Marries Lila Kyle, an orthopedic surgeon Divorced four years later" He closed the file and lifted his eyes to Wolgast "What we need, Agent, is somebody who, to be perfectly candid, has a certain polish Good negotiation skills, not just with the prisoners but with the prison authorities Soe ial-hell, it may be the most important piece of medical research in the history ofyou as much as I am because I think it will help if you understand the stakes, how high they are"

Wolgast guessed Sykes was telling him maybe ten percent of the story-a persuasive ten percent, but even so "Is it safe?"

Sykes shrugged "There’s safe and then there’s safe I won’t lie to you There are risks But we’ll do everything we can to minimize them A bad outcome isn’t in anybody’s interest here And I remind you that these are death row inmates Not the nicest men you’d ever care to meet, and they don’t exactly have a lot of options We’re giving thenificant contribution to medical science at the sa shot Everybody’s on the side of the angels here"

Wolgast took a last uess I don’t see why the military is involved"

At this, Sykes stiffened; he seeent Let’s say a soldier on the ground in Khorramabad or Grozny takes a piece of shrapnel A roadside bomb, say, a bunch of C-4 in a lead pipe full of deck screws Maybe it’s a piece of black-market Russian ordnance Believe s can do We have to dust him out of there, ets to the field hospital, where a traueon, two medics, and three nurses patch hi him to Germany or Saud It’s painful, it’s awful, it’s his rotten luck, and he’s probably out of the war He’s a broken asset All theis a total loss And it gets worse He co worse, with nothing good to say about anyone or anything Down at the corner tavern he tells his buddies, I lostfor the rest of my life, and for what?" Sykes leaned back in his chair, letting the story sink in "We’ve been at war for fifteen years, Agent By the looks of things, we’ll be in it for fifteen est challenge thesoldiers on the field So, let’s say the same GI takes the same piece of shrapnel but within half a day his body’s healed itself and he’s back in his unit, fighting for God and country You think thelike that?"