“Fax it to me now.” Peter did, and there was a long silence, while Paul-Louis read the memo. For the next hour they went backward and forward over the research, while Peter answered as many questions as he could, and then finally there was yet another long silence, and Peter sensed that Paul-Louis had made his mind up. “It's very subjective, you understand. At this stage, there is not necessarily a clear-cut interpretation. It is a good thing, of course. It is a wonderful product which will change our ability to cope with cancer. But there are additional elements that must be evaluated. It is that evaluation which is so difficult to give you. Nothing is sure in life. Nothing is without risk, or cost. The question is if you are willing to pay it.” He sounded very French in his philosophy, but Peter understood him.

“The question for us is how great the risk is.” “I understand that.” He understood it perfectly. It was what had worried him in June while Peter had been in Paris. “And the new research is good, unquestionably. They're on the right track now …” His voice trailed off as he frowned and lit a cigarette. All the scientists Peter had met in Europe were smokers.

“But are we there yet?” Peter asked hesitantly, almost afraid to hear the answer.

“No …not yet …” Suchard said sadly. “Perhaps soon, if they continue to work in this direction. But you are not there yet. In my opinion Vicotec is still potentially dangerous, particularly in unskilled hands,” which were precisely the hands it was meant for. It was being made for laymen to use, at home if necessary. It meant staying at home for chemotherapy, and not going to hospitals, or even doctors.

“Is it still a killer, Paul-Louis?” That was what he had called it in June. Peter could still hear him.

“I think so.” The voice on the other end sounded apologetic but clear. “You're not there yet, Peter. Give it time. You will be.”

“And the hearings?'

“When are they?”

Peter looked at his watch. It was five o'clock in the morning. “In nine hours. At two o'clock this afternoon. I'm leaving the house in two hours.” He was taking an eight o'clock plane, and planned to appear before Congress at eleven.

“I don't envy you, my friend. There is very little I can say. If you want to be honest, you must tell them that this will be a wonderful drug, but it is not ready yet. You are still in process.”

“You don't go before the FDA to say that. We're asking for permission for early clinical trials, based on our laboratory testing. Frank wants it on the market as soon as we can push it through all the phases of human trials, and get FDA approval.”

Suchard whistled at the other end. “That's frightening. Why is he pushing so hard?”

“He wants to retire in January. And he wants to know it's well on its way before that. This would have been his farewell gift to mankind. And mine. Instead it feels like a time bomb.”

“It is, Peter. You must know that.”

“I do. But no one else wants to hear it. He says he'll pull the product before the end of the year if we're not ready to use it on humans. But he's still insisting we go to Washington. To tell you the truth, it's a long story.” It had to do with the ego of an old man, and calculated risk in a billion-dollar business. But in this case, Frank's calculations were not good ones, and they were based on his ego. It was a dangerous move that could destroy his whole business, but he still refused to see that. And the odd thing was that Peter saw it so clearly. Frank was being stubborn to the point of insanity. Maybe he was getting senile, or just crazed with his own power. It was impossible to know that.

He thanked Paul-Louis for his help, and the Frenchman wished him luck, and when he hung up, Peter went to make a pot of coffee. He still had the option to back out, but he just couldn't see how to do that. He could also go to the hearings, and then resign from Wilson-Donovan, but that wouldn't protect the people he had tried to help and was being forced to put at risk now. The trouble was he didn't trust Frank to cancel its human trials, if their lab reports didn't improve radically in the immediate future. Something told Peter he was too willing to gamble. There was too much money to be made here, no matter what the risk to human life. The temptation was too great now.

Katie heard him stirring a little while later, and she came out to the kitchen before the alarm went off. She found Peter at the kitchen table with his head in his hands, drinking his second cup of coffee. She had never seen him like that before, he looked almost worse than her father right after his heart attack.

“What are you so worried about?” she said, putting a hand on his shoulder. But it was too hard to explain it to her, it was obvious she didn't understand it, or want to. “It'll be over before you know it.” She made it sound like a root canal, instead of the violation of everything he believed in. His ethics, his integrity, his principles were all in jeopardy and she couldn't see that. He looked up at her unhappily as she sat across the table, looking as trim and as cool as ever in her pink nightgown.

“I'm doing this for all the wrong reasons, Kate. Not because it's right, or because we're ready for it. But I'm doing it for you, and your father. I feel like a Mafia hit man.”

“That's a disgusting thing to say,” she said, looking annoyed at him. “How can you make a comparison like that? You are doing it because you know it is right, and you owe it to my father.”

He sat back in the kitchen chair, and looked at her, wondering what the future held for them, at the rate they were going. Not much, from what he could see lately. And now he knew how Olivia had felt when she said she had sold out to Andy. It was a life built on lies and pretense. And in this case, blackmail.

“What is it that you both seem to think I owe you?” he asked calmly. “Your father seems to think I owe him a lot. As far as I've known for all these years, it's all been a fair exchange, I work hard for the company and get paid for it. And you and I had a real marriage, or I thought so. But lately this concept of 'owing' seems to keep getting into things. Why exactly do either of you think I 'owe' it to you to go to these hearings?”

“Because,” she trod very carefully on delicate ground, knowing it was potentially a minefield, “the company has been good to you for twenty years and this is your way of paying it back, standing up for a product that can make billions for us.”

“Is that what this is all about then? Money?” He looked slightly ill as he asked her. Was that what he had sold out for? Billions. At least he hadn't sold himself cheaply, he thought, wincing.

“Partly. You can't be that much of an innocent, Peter. You share in our profits. You know what we're all here for. And consider the children. What would happen to them? You'd ruin their lives too.” She looked very cold and very calculating, and very hard. And for all her talk about her father, she still cared about the money.

“It's funny. I had this crazy idea that it was for the good of mankind, or at the very least to save lives. I think that's why I did it, why I've pushed it for the last four years. But I wasn't willing to lie for it, even then. And I'm even less inclined to now, 'for money.'”

“Are you backing out now?” she asked, looking horrified. She would have gone to the hearings herself, if she could. But she wasn't employed by the company, and her father was still too ill to go, so it was up to Peter. “You know, I'd give it some very serious thought before I backed out of this,” she said, standing up and looking down at him. “I think it would be fair to say that if you chicken out on us now, your bright future at Wilson-Donovan is about over.”

“And our marriage?” he asked, playing with fire now, and he knew it.

“That remains to be seen,” she said quietly. “But I would view it as the ultimate betrayal.” And he could see she meant that, but suddenly, just looking at her, he felt better. She was so crisp and so clear, so much what she had always been, although he hadn't always seen it.

“It's good to know where you stand on this, Kate,” Peter said calmly, their eyes meeting over the kitchen table as they stood on either side of it. And before she could answer, Patrick came in for breakfast.

“What are you two doing up so early?” he asked, looking sleepy.

“Your mother and I are going to Washington today,” Peter said firmly.

“Oh, I forgot. Is Granddad going too?” Patrick yawned and poured himself a glass of milk as he chatted.

“No, the doctor said it was too soon,” Peter explained, and Frank called a few minutes later. He wanted to catch Peter before he left, and remind him what he wanted him to say to Congress about pricing. They had already discussed it a dozen times in the past few days, but Frank wanted to be sure Peter would stand by the party line in front of Congress.

“We're not giving anything away, and certainly not Vicotec, when it comes around. Don't forget that,” he reminded Peter sternly. Even his ideas about pricing Vicotec went against everything Peter believed in. Kate was watching him when he came back to the table.

“Everything all right?” She smiled at him as he nodded. And then they both went to dress, and they drove to the airport half an hour later.

Peter seemed strangely calm on the way there, and he said very little to Kate. He had terrified her for a little while, but she realized he must have been nervous. She had been afraid he would back out, but now she was just as sure he wouldn't. Peter always finished what he started.

It was a short flight from La Guardia to National Airport, and Peter spent most of it going through his papers. He had several files on pricing issues in front of him, and all the new reports on the Vicotec research. He particularly went over the parts Suchard had pointed out to him earlier that morning when Peter called him. The Vicotec material worried him a lot more than his appearance before Congress.