hours. On the other hand, none of his bosses ever had to know that he had decided to play the Good Samaritan for this frantic young woman. Call it my good deed for the week, he decided. Besides, she was pretty cute, and he had always had an unrequited passion for redheads.
He took the building key card out of his shirt pocket and swiped it through the lock. It buzzed once and clicked open. He pulled the heavy glass door back with a welcoming smile. “Here you go, ma'am. The phone's just —”
The mace blast caught Yiu right in the eyes and open mouth. He doubled over, blinded, gagging, and helpless. Before he could even try to fumble for his weapon, the door slammed wide open — hurling him backward onto the slick tiled floor. Several people burst through the open door and into the lobby. Strong arms grabbed him, pinioned his arms behind his back, and then secured his wrists using his own handcuffs. Someone else yanked a cloth hood over his head.
A woman bent down to whisper in his ear. “Remember this! Lazarus lives!”
By the time Yiu's relief arrived to set him free, the intruders were long gone. But the Telos nanotech lab was a total wreck — full of smashed glassware, burned out electron-scanning microscopes, punctured steel tanks, and spilled chemicals. The Lazarus Movement slogans spray-painted across the walls, doors, and windows left little doubt about the loyalties of those responsible.
As the weak autumn sun climbed toward the zenith, thousands of protesters already clogged the steep tree- lined hill overlooking Zurich's Old Town and the River Limmat. They blockaded every street around the twin campuses of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology and the University of Zurich. Scarlet and green Lazarus Movement flags waved above the crowds, along with signs demanding a ban on all Swiss-based nanotech-nology research projects.
Squads of riot police holding truncheons and clear Plexiglas shields waited at parade rest some blocks away from the mass of protesters. Armored cars with water cannons and tear gas grenade launchers were parked nearby. But the police did not appear to be in any real hurry to move in and clear the streets.
Dr. Karl Friederich Kaspar, the head of one of the labs now under peaceful siege, stood just behind the police barricades, close to the upper station of the Zurich Polybahn, the funicular railway built more than a century before to serve both the university and the Institute. He checked his watch again and ground his teeth together in frustration. Fuming, he sought out the highest-ranking police official he could find. “Look, why all the delay? Without a permit, this demonstration is illegal. Why don't you put your troops in and break it up?”
The police officer shrugged. “I follow my orders, Herr Professor Direk-tor Kaspar. At the moment, I have no such orders.”
Kaspar hissed in disgust. “This is absurd! I have staff waiting to go to work. We have many very valuable and expensive experiments to conduct.”
“That is a pity,” said the policeman carefully.
“A pity!” Kaspar growled. “It's more than a pity; it's a disgrace.” He eyed the other man angrily. “I might almost think you have sympathy for these ignorant dunderheads.”
The police officer turned to face him, meeting Kaspar's furious gaze without flinching. “I am not a member of the Lazarus Movement, if that is what you are suggesting,” he said quietly. “But I saw what happened in America. I do not wish such a catastrophe to occur here in Zurich.”
The lab director turned bright red. “Such a thing is impossible! Utterly impossible! Our work is completely different from anything the Americans and Japanese were doing at the Teller Institute! There is no comparison!”
That is excellent news,“ the policeman said, with the faint hint of a sardonic smile. He made a show of offering Kaspar a bullhorn. ”Perhaps if you assured the protesters of this truth, they might see the error of their ways and disperse?'
Kaspar could only stare back at him, dismayed to find so much ignorance and insolence in a fellow public servant.
Chapter Fifteen
With the sun rising red behind it, the huge An-124 Condor thundered low over the airport's inner beacon line and dropped heavily onto Runway Eight. Its four large pylon-mounted turbofans howled as the pilot reversed thrust. Decelerating, the Condor bounced and rolled down the nearly thirteen-thousand-foot-long landing strip, chasing its own lengthening shadow. In seconds, it lumbered past the hangars and revetments holding F-16s that belonged to New Mexico's 150th Air National Guard Fighter Wing. Still slowing, it passed camouflaged concrete-and-steel ordnance bunkers, which had been used to store strategic and tactical nuclear weapons during the Cold War.
Near the western end of the tarmac, the enormous Russian-made Antonov cargo aircraft turned off onto a freight apron and rolled ponderously to a complete stop beside a much smaller corporate jet. The shrill noise of its engines died away. Seen up close, the Nomura PharmaTech-owned plane dwarfed the group of reporters and cameramen waiting to record its arrival.
The An-124's sixty-foot-high rear cargo ramp whined open, settling heavily on the oil- and jet fuel-stained concrete. Two crewmen in flight suits walked down the ramp, shading their eyes against the bright sunlight. Once on the ground, they turned and began using hand signals to guide the drivers slowly backing a convoy of vehicles out of the Condor's cavernous cargo bay. The mobile DNA analysis labs promised by Hideo Nomura had arrived.
Nomura himself stood among the journalists, watching his support crews and medical technicians quickly and calmly preparing to make the short drive to Santa Fe. Their efficiency pleased him.
When he judged that the media had all the footage they needed, he signaled for their attention. It took some time for them to refocus their cameras and make sound checks. He waited patiently until they were ready.
“I have one other major decision to announce, ladies and gentlemen,” Nomura began. “It is not one I have made lightly. But I think it is the only sensible decision, especially in view of the terrible tragedy we all witnessed yesterday.” He paused for dramatic effect. “Effective immediately, Nomura PharmaTech will suspend its nanotechnology research programs — both those in our own facilities and those we fund in other institutions around the world. We will invite outside observers into our labs and factories to confirm that we have halted all our activities in this scientific field.”
He listened politely to the frenzied clamor of questions aroused by this sudden announcement, answering those that seemed best suited to his purposes. “Was my decision prompted by the demands made earlier this morning by the Lazarus Movement?” He shook his head. 'Absolutely not. Though I respect their motives and ideals, I do not share the Movement's bias against science and technology. This temporary halt is prompted by simple prudence. Until we know exactly what went wrong at the Teller Institute, it would be foolish to put other cities at risk.'
“What about your competitors?” one of the reporters asked bluntly. “Other corporations, universities, and governments have already invested billions of dollars in medical nanotech. Should they follow your company's lead and halt their work, too?”
Nomura smiled blandly. “I will not presume to dictate what steps others should take. That is a matter for their best scientific judgment, or perhaps more appropriately, for their consciences. For my part, I can only assure you that Nomura PharmaTech will never put its own profits ahead of innocent human life.”
Big, bullheaded James Severin, the chief executive officer of Harcourt Biosciences, watched the CNN tape of Hideo Nomura's interview come to an end. “That sly, shrewd Japanese son of a bitch,” he murmured, half in grudging admiration and half in outrage. His eyes blinked angrily behind the thick lenses of his black-framed glasses. “He knows his company's nanotech projects are way behind everybody else's work — so far behind that they've got no real chance of catching up!”
His senior aide, just as tall but about one hundred pounds lighter, nodded. “From what we can tell, Nomura's people lag our researchers by at least eighteen months. They're still sorting out basic theory, while our lab teams
