"Mercury-based?" one of the scientists asked aloud when Shane mentioned the next symptom on his list, blurry vision.

Shane watched as several of the other people around the conference room table shook their heads. It had been like this since he had arrived at ISA headquarters that morning. After Shane had reported what Kim had told him the day before, Craig Reilly, the ISA's head of scientific research, had suggested an urgent meeting - a brainstorming session with the ISA's top doctors, biochemists and researchers. It sounded like a good idea in theory, so Shane had booked the first flight out of Salem that morning. The problem was that he could only get a few words out at a time before he was interrupted by another theory that led to widespread debate among the scientists.

A couple of the scientists began speaking over one another, but were interrupted by Dr. Reilly. He obviously also was losing patience and had decided to take control

"Stop it," Reilly ordered. "Let Captain Donovan give us all the information before we go off on theories." He turned to Shane. "Sorry, Captain, sometimes it's like herding cats in here."

"That's fine." Shane turned back to his list. "Okay, so far, we have general weakness, a 'pins and needles' sensation-"

"Paresthesia," said a female doctor named Bowers. Her first name was Lindsay or something similar. "That's the term-" She cut off abruptly when she caught Reilly's glare, and mumbled, "Sorry."

As the lone non-scientist in the room, Shane knew he needed to play nice. Even though he was above Reilly in the ISA hierarchy, Shane's scientific knowledge was limited to things like how to get C-4 wired and how to operate computers and the other gadgets the ISA provided field agents. When it came to figuring out what Lawrence Alamain was developing from the various symptoms Steve had experienced, Shane was at the mercy of the ISA research staff. So, for now, he would let Dr. Reilly play "bad cop," while Shane made every effort to be the "good cop."

"So weakness, paresthesia - I hope I'm pronouncing that right," he said, as he smiled at Dr. Bowers, who nodded in response. "Next was blurry vision, followed by sweating and an inability to speak. Johnson described that as his tongue felt heavy. Convulsions." Shane paused so everyone could write that down. "From what I understand, he occasionally had breathing problems and his chest got tight. Sometimes, he fell and couldn't move at all." Shane looked around the table. "I think that's the lot. So . . . any idea what we're dealing with?"

Reilly took over. "I think the first question is whether we're dealing with another virus or a toxin."

"Toxin," said Dr. Bowers. Three of the other four scientists nodded in agreement. The fourth, a researcher named Raj - Shane had no idea if that was a first or a last name - shrugged.

"I don't think we know enough to be sure."

That immediately set of a flurry of comments as the scientists argued with one another.

"It's too fast-acting to be a virus."

"Who knows what Alamain's come up with," Raj said. "Maybe he's found some way of making viruses infect their hosts more quickly."

"An ingested virus? Just the time to get to the bloodsteam-"

"I know, I know," Raj said. "I'm just reluctant to rule things out."

After a brief back-and-forth, Reilly held up his hands. "Enough. Raj, you may be right, but I think we have to agree that the odds are that this is some form of toxin." He turned to Shane. "An ingested poison."

Shane was hardly an expert, but he had to agree. "Some type of chemical toxin?" he asked. When Reilly nodded, Shane said, "That makes sense given what we experienced with the fire in Alamain's compound."

"Yes, I was factoring that into the equation." Reilly looked back around the table. "So now the question is what type of toxin are we dealing with."

Shane listened as a few ideas were tossed out.

"What about a Cyanotoxin?" one of the new members of the research staff suggested.

Bowers shook her head. "To cause those symptoms, there would almost certainly be some liver or kidney damage." She turned to Shane. "Did the subject have any liver or kidney problems?"

"As far as I know, no." Shane thought back to the examination Steve received in Cyprus. "He was thin and had suffered from malnutrition, but the doctors never said anything about his kidney or liver." He glanced at Reilly. "Johnson only has one kidney due to a transplant operation. Would they have checked for damage?"

"Undoubtedly." Reilly sounded certain. "If the patient was malnourished or had been starved, damage to the kidneys would be a definite concern, particularly where the subject only has one functioning kidney. The doctors would have made that one of their first inquiries." He looked back at his team.

"Well, I doubt it's a hemotoxin," Bowers said.

Raj asked, "Why not? That could explain the weakness and parathesia. I know what you're going to say, but I don't want to rule things out yet."

"Come on." Bowers sounded exasperated. "It's a neurotoxic agent. The real question is what kind of ion-channel it attacks - sodium, potassium or calcium." She followed that with a slew of words almost all ending in toxin; batrachotoxin, taicatoxin, agitoxin, and slotoxin were a few that Shane caught.

"Sorry," Shane said. He hoped he did not sound as stupid as they probably would think. "Can you please explain that as if I don't have an advanced degree in biochemistry?"

Bowers flushed a little as she began to explain. "As the name suggests, neurotoxins attack nerve cells. That explains all of the symptoms - vision problems, weakness, muscle paralysis, constricted breathing. It's just that there are different types of neurotoxins depending on how they interact with the cells. They use what are called ion channels to pass through cell membranes. There are different types of ion channels - sodium, potassium, and calcium - that pass ions through the membrane. The different types of ions serve different purposes in how the nervous system works."

Reilly interrupted. "I think that's probably all the detail that Captain Donovan needs to know right now. Dr. Bowers is right that a type of neurotoxin would explain these symptoms."

"It could be sarin," Bowers said. "Most of those symptoms are consistent with a sarin attack, but that doesn't really make sense."

Shane had heard of sarin. The ISA had debated its use after reports came that the Chilean secret police had used it to assassinate political rivals. Now, Shane's curiosity was piqued. "Why not?"

"Sarin's already available, and it's not really that effective except in enclosed spaces because it disperses so rapidly." Bowers thought for a minute. "Also . . . didn't you say that they delivered the agent in liquid form?"

"Yes," Shane said. "A red liquid."

Bowers shook her head. "Sarin's already gaseous. Your guy has something liquid, but is trying to convert it to gas."

Shane leaned forward. "Why do you say that?"

"I have here in my notes that they put a mask on the subject first. That sounds like they were trying to deliver something in gaseous form. When it didn't work, they went to a fallback liquid version." Bowers looked up from her notes. "The ultimate goal is to have a gas."

Feeling rather dumb, Shane asked, "Why does he want a gas? Wouldn't a liquid work? Imagine if someone threatened to poison the water supply of New York City."

"That would be almost impossible to do effectively," Raj said, sounding as if he were talking to a child. "Perhaps if they want to make some people sick for a little while, but they would need huge volumes of a liquid if they wanted to kill."

Shane thought he understood. "Because the poison would be diluted?"

"Right," Raj said. "It also is inefficient because once the source of the poison is identified, it can be cut off."

"But won't a gas disperse in the air too?" Shane asked.

"It will." Bowers answered the question before Raj. "But if we're talking about something more dense than sarin, it could be more lethal in an open space. And in a confined space like a building or a subway tunnel, mortality levels could be close to 100%."

Reilly spoke next. "What I don't understand is why Alamain's people are trying to come up with something new. There are plenty of potent chemical agents, VX for one, that could do what's been described." The other scientists nodded accordingly, as Reilly turned to Shane. "VX is one of the chemical weapons Saddam Hussein used on the Kurds. It's a liquid, but absorbed through the skin and highly lethal."

"That's true," Bowers said. "But to cover a large population, VX and most of those types of liquid agents would have to be dropped from a plane or another airborne source. Most terrorists don't have those kind of resources. A gas could be pumped into a building ventilation system and kill everyone inside before you even knew it was there."

Shane leaned back in his chair and tried to absorb that. The scientists, who had been energetic as they discussed the scientific concepts, fell silent, as if they too were suddenly realizing the real-world implications of what they were discussing. After a long silence, Shane asked, "So what do we do?

"I think we need to try to figure out what the toxin is," Reilly said.

"My guess . . . it's based on venom from a cone snail, blue-ringed octopus or deathstalker scorpion." All eyes turned to Bowers. She looked around the table. "If you were trying to perfect a liquid toxin, wouldn't you try to replicate the most toxic venoms in the world?"

"Yeah, but those aren't the most poisonous creatures," Raj said. "Why not find a box jellyfish or an inland taipan-" He looked at Shane. "That's the world's most venomous snake."

Bowers looked askance. "Because it's a lot easier to find and safely handle the ones I mentioned, and they'd prove more than adequate in terms of lethality." She looked back at Shane. "We have no way of knowing for sure, but the symptoms are consistent with those animals. There is no antivenom for the snail and octopus venoms, and the scorpion's venom is resistant to the known antivenoms." She sighed. "It would help to have a sample of the liquid."

"That's out of the question right now," Shane said. "We have agents trying to infiltrate the facilities but they've been stymied by recent protocol changes. Also, our intelligence reports that whatever is being created has components from different facilities, so the workers at no single facility have the complete agent. They are collected and finalized at an unknown location that appears to be restricted to only a few high-placed scientists in the Alamain organization."

"What about when the agent is sent out for testing?" That question came from Reilly.

Shane said, "We don't know if that would provide us an opportunity. So far, we don't know from where or when it's sent. And with the destruction of the facility in Egypt, we don't even know where Alamain is conducting the testing. Or on whom." Shane could not even imagine how Lawrence was finding his subjects.

The room fell silent once again. Then, Bowers spoke again. "We may have one thing we can count on."

What?" Shane asked.

"Before Alamain releases his agent, he will have an antidote ready."

"How do you know that?"

"If I recall, the antidote for the virus came from one of the subjects tested with the virus." She flipped through her notes again. "And here . . . you said that, after the subject was subjected to the symptoms, he was given another liquid. They were probably testing an antidote. That seems to be part of the protocol."

Shane thought about what she was saying. "So if we find where Alamain's keeping the toxin, we also should find the antidote?"

"That makes sense," Bowers said. The other scientists around the room seemed to agree. "Otherwise, we're just flying blind here."

To Shane, it seemed like they would need a lot of luck to get both the toxin and the antidote. "Is there anything else that we can do? Something more proactive?"

Reilly nodded. "In the meantime, we can try to develop some test antidotes based on our suspicions. Granted, that's going to be a lot of trial-and-error, but it might give us something that we can use if Alamain's people try to test the toxin."

Shane suspected what Reilly was thinking. If Lawrence was going to get the attention of potential buyers, he would have to do something to demonstrate the toxin's effectiveness. Shane also knew that Lawrence liked to make a splash. Wasn't that clear from the special effects that Lawrence used at his villa? On top of that, the recent events in Salem also showed that Lawrence had no morality and no hesitation to hurt even the most innocent people.

As Shane finished the meeting and left ISA headquarters to return to Salem, he could not shake those thoughts. Lawrence Alamain was planning something big and Shane strongly suspected those plans would hit very close to home - to the Bradys and to Salem.