jennifer riker scanned the contents in the packet.

little of it made sense. first, there were the files.

being a doctor's wife, jennifer had seen plenty of patient files before but these were considerably more vague than most. specifics were not jotted down more like bruce's overall opinions and thoughts on the patient. a journal almost. she read the neatly typed name on the label of the first file: trian, scott.

she jumped back to the beginning of the file and saw a whole slew of numbers:

1/9 897a83 1/16 084c33 1/23 995d42 1/30 774c09 2/06 786m60 they continued in a similar pattern for two full pages. jennifer went to the kitchen and grabbed a calendar. she guessed that 1/9 must stand for january 9,1/16 for january 16, and so on. she checked the calendar. january 9 was a monday, as was every other day that followed. for some reason bruce had jotted down a five digit number with a letter between the third and fourth numeral on every monday.

why?

she shrugged and continued to read. very little of it made sense to her a lot of medical jargon but early on she read something that she understood all too clearly:

hiv positive. t cell count very low. signs of kaposi's sarcoma.

the word wasn't there, but jennifer knew what bruce was trying to say: aids. in fact she could not find the term anywhere in any of the reports, as though the very acronym should be avoided, whispered, never written in anything but easy-to-erase pencil.

aids.

she continued to read. a few pages later another paragraph gave her reason to pause. bruce's handwriting was bright now, soaring, reflecting the mood he had obviously felt at this moment.

she had seen what the job of medical research could do to a man, the highs and the lows, how every setback brought on depression and every breakthrough a major high. emotions swayed on a daily, sometimes hourly, basis:

good news. trian appears to be getting better. his progress is remarkably similar to the animal tests which proved so successful. it is hard not to get your hopes up when you chart it. the sri has taken its toll on him, but for the first time he appears genuinely healthy.

is it simply remission or something much more?

and ten months later:

we are finally ready. harvey and i will know tomorrow.

i can't believe it. both of us are so anxious that we keep snapping at one another and anyone who happens to be around us. poor eric. harvey almost bit his head off for nothing.

he felt bad about it afterwards, like harv always does when he loses his temper. then he tried to make it up to him by repeatedly complimenting eric on his work.

i can't blame harvey for being a little edgy. this is it.

this is what we've been waiting for.

what was bruce talking about? what were they waiting for?

jennifer noted the date. nine months ago. so much had happened to her in the last nine months leaving harvey, moving to california but when jennifer read what happened the next day, she realized how insignificant the changes in her life had been.

bruce's words put her own private world back in perspective, and for the first time in many months she felt the hollow pang of inadequacy ripple anew from the distant recesses of her mind.

"my god," she uttered out loud.

"it can't be."

she swallowed and re-read the page, sure that she had misunderstood the words:

i am not ashamed to say that tears keep running down my face as i write this. powerful emotions keep crashing over me. it's more than i can take. it's more than i ever expected to hear. but i'm getting ahead of myself so let me go back a moment.

"i'll try to be as precise as possible for the sake of posterity.

harvey and i wanted to see the trian results for ourselves. after all, this is hardly the kind of thing you wait for the lab boys to send you a report on. so we walked toward the lab with the controlled rush of school children heading for recess under a teacher's watchful eye.

winston seemed surprised to see us. he asked what we were doing in the lab. i told him we wanted the results for 443t90. why the rush?

winston asked.

harvey became a little impatient, which was certainly understandable under the circumstances, and told him to hand over the file. winston did.

we were too nervous to open it in the lab so we did our "trying not to run" bit back down to my office.

janice stopped us on the way to ask a question, but we just blew right by her. she looked at us like we had lost our minds. we hustled into my office and closed the door. harvey handed me the file. i can't look, he said.

i opened it. trian was hiv negative. his t cell count was almost normal. my heart leapt into my throat while harvey stood without moving. i think he was in shock.

we called in eric and told him the news. he and i began to shout and jump around like super bowl champs, but not harv. he just stood to the side and looked off at nothing. what's the matter? i asked him. we've done it.

harv shook his head. not so fast, he said. we have a lot still to be done.

but look at the results, i insisted. he's hiv negative.

harvey: yes, but for how long? it's encouraging but what do we know for sure? we have to test him again.

me: but this is just what we need to get the place going again. we needed this boost, this kick in the ass. the phs will give us more money now. our grant will have to be extended.

harvey: timing is everything.

me: what does that mean?

harvey: it means that we have to keep this quiet. can you imagine the uproar if such news got out? the press, the scrutiny? we'll lose our anonymity.

eric said nothing.

harvey: no, my friends, for right now, we should tell no one. we will reveal little bits enough to maintain interest and finances but not enough for anyone to know for sure. in the meantime let's make sure everything is well documented. send the sample to bangkok on friday.

jennifer could not believe what she was reading. hiv negative? they had turned someone who had been hiv positive back into hiv negative.

the disclosure hit her like a heavyweight.

they've cured aids.

that was probably optimistic thinking, but the evidence was right in front of her. they had done it. somehow they had found a cure for the aids virus. and harvey had never mentioned it to her.

it was all so unbelievable. the startling revelation wearied her.

she put the file down and closed her eyes. she wanted just to rest them for a few minutes before continuing to read, but exhaustion got the better of her. she slid into the cusp between consciousness and slumber and her head tilted back. one question kept gnawing at the base of her brain as she glided down into a deep, sound sleep:

why had bruce committed suicide right after mailing out this packet?

ralph edmund, the county coroner, rolled the stretcher past max. ralph looked like a coroner to be more precise, a mortician.

sallow skin, tall, thin body, thin black hair, long fingers. on the other hand he never dressed like a mortician. he wore loud colors, polyester prints, and ostentatious gold jewelry. he also did not act like a mortician. ralph was emotional, loud, uncouth as all hell. even better, he had the charming habit of chewing tobacco and spitting the black-yellow juice wherever and whenever he saw fit.

"i want the autopsy done right away," max whispered to the coroner.

"is that why you called me down here personally?" ralph asked.

max nodded.

"check everything."

"okay," ralph replied, a thick ball of tobacco bulging in his cheek.

"i'll get to it later this afternoon."

"now. right now. and get all the blood samples you can out of him. i want you to run a full battery of tests on him."

"like what?"

"well go over it later."

"hey, twitch, why you whispering? he's not going to wake up. ha!"

"hilarious. just find out what killed him." max turned and moved toward harvey. the doctor looked pale and exhausted.

"where's martino's roommate?" v

"kiel davis? i had him moved to another room. he's being sedated."

'1 want to speak with him."

"later," harvey replied. he shook his head.

"my god, i can't believe this." "what's to believe?" max asked, flipping through his notepad.

"there was no visible trauma, no blood, no stab or gunshot wounds, no signs of a struggle. the victim was a patient at an aids clinic so we can assume he was in poor health. all signs point to death by natural causes, right?"

harvey did not reply right away.

"ricky martino was no angel," he said at last.

"he was an intravenous drug abuser. he used to push drugs at a local high school."

"irrelevant. how sick was he?"

"actually," harvey replied, "martino was cured."

"he didn't have aids?"

"not any more. his last test showed he was hiv negative.

he was still undergoing more treatment, of course, but he was on his way to a full recovery."

"interesting," max said.

"to be frank," harvey continued, "i wasn't crazy about treating martino."

"why not?"

"because he was a lousy candidate. for one thing, he was a heroin addict." "then why did you?" sara asked.

"with so many good candidates willing to give anything a try, why would you choose martino?"

"because we wanted a cross section of patients not just gay men. so bruce brought martino in. brace liked martino. he believed in him." "and you didn't?" sara continued.

harvey shrugged.

"intravenous drug abusers, by and large, are a rather sordid group. i confess i'm no big fan of treating ivdas not for any moral reason but simply because they are unreliable data. addicts cannot be trusted. on top of that, most of them are already unhealthy from a lifetime of abusing their bodies, which makes their chances of fighting the disease that much slimmer."

"then what do you think killed him, doctor?" max asked.

"i don't know." he paused to gather his thoughts.

"i just don't understand it. i was in this room less than an hour ago."

"before you got hit on the head?"

"right before."

"and martino appeared fine?"

"he was breathing, if that's what you mean. look, martino was not the healthiest man alive, but he had nothing that would have lead to an acute death like this. and with the prowler in here tonight and all... it just seems like a hell of a coincidence."

max folded his arms across his chest, his face twisted in heavy thought.

"if martino was murdered, it puts this whole thing in a new light."

"what do you mean?" harvey asked.

"new m. o." for one," he answered.

"no stabbing," sara agreed.

"but what about brace?" harvey said.

"he wasn't stabbed either."

bernstein nodded slowly and began to pace.

"let's slow down a minute. five people are dead, four patients, one doctor. three trian, whitherson, and jenkins were stabbed to death under similar, though not identical, circumstances." "we know all this," harvey said impatiently.

"just bear with me, okay? what do the three patients have in common?"

"they were gay," sara began, "and they were all being treated at the same aids clinic."

"now add martino to the list, assuming he too was murdered."

"then we can rule out a gay basher," harvey noted.

"martino was heterosexual." his beeper went off.

"damn, i have to go."

"i'll need to speak to you later," max said.

"i also want to see your files on the murder victims."

harvey nodded and left. bernstein stopped pacing and looked toward sara gently.

"you must be exhausted. why don't you get some sleep?"

"i feel fine."

"sara..."

"don't start this shit with me, max. crying and moping around is not going to help. i need something to distract me."

max nodded, understanding.

"okay, where were we?"

"riccardo martino."

"right. add him into the equation and what makes them all similar?"

"two things," sara answered.

"aids and the clinic. like harvey said, we can eliminate the gay connection since martino was heterosexual."

"okay, now let's move on to dr. bruce grey. add him to whitherson, trian, jenkins, and martino. now what is the common denominator?"

"only one thing," sara answered.

"the clinic. someone is targeting people associated with the sidney pavilion."

max did not respond right away. he just looked off, his head slowly shaking, his teeth locating another corner of fingernail on which he could gnaw.

"we're missing something here," he said finally, "something big."

"like?"

"hell if i know."

"do you think someone is trying to sabotage the clinic?"

"could be."

she glanced at the clock above the door.

"i have to get back to michael now. he'll be waking up in a little while."

"i'm going to check through dr. riker's patient files."

"okay. i'll see you later."

"sara? one other thing?"

"yesr

"i'm saying this as a friend, not a police officer."

"go ahead."

"you're blocking on michael. it's going to hit you soon."

she moved to the door.

"i know, max. thanks."

he could hear the running water.

"no, no please..."

"shut up, you whining punk."

seven- year-old michael looked up, his eyes tainted with fear. his stepfather was leaning over the tub. his blue work shirt, the name marty sewed on the breast pocket in red script, was unbuttoned, revealing a ripped white t-shirt underneath. marty's face contorted into a look of pure, dumb anger and hate. his breath reeked of liquor and tobacco.

"get over here, michael!"

"please..."

"if i have to chase you, boy..." he never finished the sentence, allowing michael's imagination to do it instead.

michael tried to run, but his feet felt glued to the floor. he could not move. marty reached his hand out and took michael by the hair.

he tugged him forward and then down, forcing michael's head under the water.

"you gonna mess around in my room again?" marty shouted.

michael could not answer. he could not breathe. he flailed his head back and forth, searching for air. but there was none. water went down his throat and he began to choke.

marty's grip tightened. his hand held firm.

"i didn't hear you, boy. you gonna mess around in my room again?"

pressure built up in michael's head. his lungs felt like they were about to burst. he could hear the water splash around him... michael shot up out of bed. sweat coated his skin.

just a dream.

he looked around, almost expecting to see marty's face in the corner of the darkened room. but his stepfather was not there.

michael was alone in the clinic. the aids clinic. he had aids.

from the hallway he could hear water running. someone washing up.

someone cleaning out something. no reason to be scared.

he swung his legs out of the bed and stood. his body still trembled from the power of the dream, but at least he didn't feel any of the sri side effects yet. he wrapped his arms around his chest and moved toward the window. he looked out. not much of a view. just a dirty alley. garbage strewn everywhere. two homeless men playing cards.

overturned tin cans. cats chewing on a chicken bone. the only thing that hinted at the sanitary conditions within the building was a startlingly clean white truck with the inscription

"recovery corporation of america medical waste disposal" painted across its side.

michael continued to stare.

random thoughts and emotions ricocheted through his mind.

they moved so quickly that he could not make complete sense of them, like trying to read a license plate as a car speeds by you.

he tried to slow them down, but it was impossible. he caught just glimpses. in the end, one word became clear, blocking out all others:

sara.

funny, but michael was not afraid of dying. leaving sara frightened him more. alone. with the baby. the future meant something to him now. he had a stake in it, responsibilities. he wanted to stay with sara, with the baby. so why did this happen now? why show him what could be only to take it away?

enough self-pity, michael. you're making me sick.

he thought about the press conference he would have to give tonight on newsflash and wondered what he was going to say.

he could just imagine the questions the reporters were going to hurl at him gleefully:

"have you always been gay?..."

"did your wife know?..."

"how about your teammates?..."

"how many boyfriends have you had?..."

and oh god, sara, what am i doing to you? he asked himself.

all i ever wanted to do was protect you. now, i'm throwing you in the middle of this. i wish i didn't have to. i wish i could just ignore it, blind myself from the truth. but i can't. why should you have to suffer anymore? part of me wants to push you away, to shield you from going through this whole aids shit with me.

but michael knew he could never. sara would never allow it. and he knew that if the roles had been reversed, there would be no way sara could have persuaded him to let her go. none.

she would want to be there, and selfish as it might be, he wanted her there. he knew he would never make it without her.

he just wished he wasn't so goddamn scared.

"michael?"

he turned. sara stood in the doorway. she was so beautiful, so goddamn achingly beautiful... he felt tears come to his eyes, but he forced them back down again.

"i love you," he said.

she limped to the window and hugged him tightly.

he closed his eyes and held on.

"we're going to beat this thing, aren't we?"

she pulled back and looked up at him. a smile flirted with her lips.

"we're going to whip its ass," she said staunchly.

she embraced him again, trying so very hard to believe her own words.

the next morning lieutenant bernstein found dr. harvey riker in the lab, checking through his private files.

"anything missing?" the lieutenant asked.

harvey shook his head.

"but someone went through them.

a couple of them are out of order."

"michael's?"

"yes. have you heard from the coroner yet?"

bernstein nodded. the fingers of his right hand busily twisted a paper clip into shapes it was never intended to achieve.

"there were traces of cyanide. someone injected it into his right arm."

"so it was murder."

"looks like."

harvey let go a long breath.

"did you speak with kiel davis yetr

"yes. he saw nothing. he heard nothing. he knows nothing."

as harvey was about to respond, winston o'connor stepped through the doorway.

"good morning, harvey."

"hi, winston. win, i want you to meet lieutenant bernstein."

winston o'connor stuck out his hand.

"pleasure, sir. ain't you kinda young to be a lieutenant?"

bernstein ignored the common question and busied himself studying the man. fortyish, thick southern accent, blond-turning to-grey hair, average height, open smile.

"you're the chief lab technician?"

"that's right," winston twanged.

"what brings you all around these parts, lieutenant?"

"someone broke into this lab last night," bernstein said, purposely not saying anything about martino yet.

"you're kidding! a break-in here? what did they taker

"nothing," max replied.

"dr. riker walked in on them."

"you all right, harv?"

"fine."

"where were you last night at around three in the morning?" max asked.

winston's face registered surprise.

"am i a suspect?"

"no one is a suspect. i'm just trying to figure out what happened."

"i was home all night."

"you live alone?"

"yes."

"can anyone vouch for your whereabouts?"

"why the hell would i need anyone to vouch for me?"

"please just answer the question."

"no. i don't make a point of having witnesses watch me when i'm in my own home."

"what time did you leave here last night?"

"around midnight."

"were you the last one to leave the lab?" "no," winston said, his voice an octave higher.

"eric blake was still here."

"alone?"

"yes. i just locked up some of the experiments, same as i do every night, and left him in here." winston glared at the police detective, but bernstein diverted his gaze, never allowing the man to look him in the eye.

"can i go down the hall now to get a cup of coffee, lieutenant, or do you need my mama's maiden name first?"

"go."

winston spun and left.

"kind of touchy," bernstein remarked.

"but a good man," harvey added, "hard worker."

"how long have you known him?"

"fifteen years."

"how long has he lived in new york?"

"i don't know. almost twenty years."

max stroked his chin.

"interesting."

"what?"

"nothing. i have a few more questions for you, if you don't mind."

"ask away."

bernstein's pacing commenced. he never looked in harvey's direction as he spoke.

"how many confidential patients do you treat?"

"they are all confidential, lieutenant."

"okay, but how many are 'very' confidential, kept away from the rest of the patients behind that door down the hall with no window on it?"

"right now, just michael. i came up with the idea of the secluded room when we first started treating bradley jenkins."

"how did you meet jenkins?"

harvey went back to sorting his files.

"through his father."

"and how did you meet his father?"

"he came to see me one day. said he wanted to know more about what we were doing. i was wary, of course. senator stephen jenkins is hardly one who normally sides with our cause.

after a while he said he had heard rumors that we could cure aids. i denied it, telling him our success had been miniscule at best. but he was adamant. that's when he told me about his son." "he admitted to you that bradley had aids?"

"yes, he was desperate, lieutenant. he may be a bit of a fanatic, but his boy was sick and dying. he promised me he'd help the clinic discreetly if i took bradley in."

"so you did."

he nodded and then realized that the lieutenant was not facing him.

"i didn't really believe he'd help. i was more hoping he wouldn't hurt."

"jenkins took a hell of a risk trusting you."

"what choice did he have? he wanted to save his son's life.

we worked out extra security measures like we used with michael hidden entrances from the basement and all that."

"besides yourself, who knows the names of the patients in here?"

"that's the weird part. practically nobody. bruce knew. eric knows many of the names, not all. and..." he stopped.

"who else?" max asked again.

"dr. raymond markey."

"who's he?"

"an assistant secretary of health and human services. we report to him directly."

"do you trust him?"

"not much. he's always been more of a politician than a doctor."

"but he knew bradley jenkins was in here?"

"no. we hid it from him."

"how did you manage that?"

"i lied."

"how?"

harvey shrugged.

"i just left bradley's name off the patient list i sent markey."

"and this markey guy never questioned it?"

"no."

"does he know you've found a cure?"

"yes and no. we tell him just enough so he can't pull back the money."

"and he just accepts your word?"

harvey half-chuckled.

"hardly. we always back up our claims with irrefutable evidence. a good researcher always guards against a charge of tampering with results. just the accusation of falsifying data could bring down an entire clinic like ours. that's why i set up a system where at least two doctors work on each case always at separate times. it prevents any hint of wrongdoing."

"i'm not sure i follow."

"take the blood work."

"the blood work?"

"the taking and handling of blood. if i did the original examination on a patient, bruce or eric would do the testing during the latter stages of the treatment and vice-versa. let me give you an example. i diagnosed teddy krutzer as having the aids virus three years ago. as a result, bruce was the one who handled the blood work when we tested to see if krutzer had actually become hiv negative. another example.

scott trian, the first murder victim, was first diagnosed with aids by bruce grey four years ago so "

"so you or eric ran the blood test to see if he had been cured or not."

"exactly. this way, we are able to head off anyone who might want to slow us down by throwing out false accusations of tampering."

max shook his head.

"this case just keeps getting weirder and weirder."

"not so weird," harvey said.

"oh?"

"i think it's pretty simple."

"then why don't you let me in on it?"

harvey stopped playing with the files and looked up.

"someone is trying to destroy this clinic. someone has found out what we have discovered here and wants to prevent us from showing the world.

it's what i've suspected all along. it's why i set up all these internal safeguards."

"but " "look, lieutenant, it's like i told sara in the beginning. if i wanted to prove to you that i could cure aids, what would be the most convincing thing i could show you? cured patients, right? eliminate the cured patients and all i have is charts and graphs and tests and files that don't add up to a thing. i'd have to start all over again.

a vaccine could be delayed years." "makes sense, i guess," bernstein said without breaking stride.

"but let me ask you this. how many good test cases are still alive?"

"three."

"three cured patients left," max repeated.

"well then, all three need protection. they should be moved to a safehouse where no one will know where they are." "i agree," harvey said.

"then i have a suggestion for you, doctor, that you might not like. i want to put them in a real safehouse."

"i don't understand."

"if this conspiracy is as big as you suspect, then anyone could be involved in this plot. they've already gone to extreme lengths and they probably won't stop now. i think it safest if no one, not even you, knows where they are. the less everyone knows, the less that can slip out. or be forced out."

"do you really think "

"five men nave been murdered already," bernstein interrupted.

"but these patients have to be watched by a qualified doctor."

"i have a doctor who has made a living keeping his mouth shut. you tell him what to do and he'll do it. if you need to see them yourself, i'll take you to the safehouse. blindfolded."

harvey nodded.

"okay, sounds reasonable. but i want your word that the patients won't be touched without specific permission. if your doctor were to give them the wrong medication or take unnecessary tests "

"he won't, you have my word. i'd also like to go through the medical records of the four victims."

"of course, lieutenant, but let me ask you something."

"go ahead."

"if this conspiracy is so powerful, how do i know you're not a part of it?"

bernstein stopped pacing, looked up, and twirled his hair around his middle finger.

"interesting question," he replied. and then he walked out the door.

jennifer riker woke up on the couch. the contents of the packet were scattered around her.

"i'll look through it later, she thought. she showered, dressed, and poured herself a bowl of triple-bran, the latest in a series of fad cereals that were supposed to cure everything from cancer to lockjaw.

it tasted like tree bark.

her sister susan bought all those crazy health foods, coming home from the supermarket exclaiming, "i just bought (fill in the blank), and my friend (fill in the blank) swears that this will make you feel one hundred percent more (fill in the blank)."

she sighed, carried the bowl back into the den, and sat on the couch.

she glanced at the file she had read yesterday.

unbelievable. harvey and bruce had done it. cured aids.

turned an hiv positive into an hiv negative. historic.

jennifer picked up scott trian's file and fingered through the pages until she arrived at the spot where she had left off. she scanned down the page. there. the spot where trian became hiv negative. she read on. trian's condition progressed nicely n-->>

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