I remember the crocodile. I remember the nardo. The spikenard. The lotus.

Where is it?

"Where is it?" I try to ask, and one of the nurses turns to me. Her eyes widen. She is surprised to hear me speak. She is surprised I am awake.

"Al hamda le lah," she says calmly and approaches my bed. She places a soothing hand on my forehead. "What did you say, ya sayeedatii?" Her accent is heavy.

My tongue is thick, and my mouth is dry. My throat hurts.

"Where is it?" I try again. "Did I lose it?"

"Laa, ya sayeedatii," says the nurse. "You've not lost it."

"Then where is it?" I repeat again.

The nurse looks up as another nurse approaches. They look at each other.

"She's delusional," the other nurse says. Her accent is faint. "Heeya tatakheyya." She steps away. Then I feel a pinch, and the light is gone again.

The light fades back in, and I am awake. I blink. I look around. The hospital room looks familiar. I see a shadow. Someone is approaching. I blink again.

You can't be here, I think, and then I am gone again.

I awaken again, and he is still here with me.

"You can't be here," I say, and he smiles.

"Well, someone had to come rescue my lady from the crocs," he says cheerfully and leans in to hug me gently.

I begin to weep, and he holds me without saying more.

When I am able to speak, I ask him.

"How are you here?"

"Your HER2 data brought me here," he says, smiling.

"John-," I begin, my voice shaking.

"I know," he says, quietly. "You don't have to say it-I already know."

He leans in and hugs me again, more tightly this time, and I think about Jeff's text message: Trust no one.

Can I trust John? I ask myself, and then he answers the question for me.

"I have to tell you something," he says, and his voice is cracking. "It's the hardest thing I've ever had to say."

"Katrina, Jeff would have died from his cancer."

"I know."

"And so will Alexis if we can't finish what he started. And so will thousands of other patients.

"I have never seen anything like this disease. I don't know what to make of it. Neither did Jeff. But the cancer cells are loaded with the HER2 protein, even though this cancer starts in the pancreas and not the breast."

"What else?" I ask, and he looks confused.

"What is the common thread between the patients? I can't think of any just between Jeff and Alexis alone."

"I don't know," John says. "Maybe you can help."

He reaches down into a small briefcase at his feet and hands me a folder. At the top, it reads "CONFIDENTIAL."

I open the folder and run my eyes down a list of patient profiles defined blindly by patient number. There is no common denominator-no race, no locale, no smoking or health history.

I turn the page. The second page is the key that connects patient numbers with names. It is this information that is confidential, known only to the physician coordinating the clinical study.

I recognize the list instantly. I lean over and vomit beside the hospital bed, and then I am gone again.

I walk. I walk down the rows of hospital beds, taking in the hopelessness of the nameless victims. An IV drips into one arm of each. A teenaged voice pleads with me. I look toward her.

The girl is Alexis, and she is fifteen.

I continue walking, and I realize that I know their names after all. As I glance at each tortured face in turn, the associated name now sears my memory like a brand. Lisa Adrian. Tracy Hallenback. Aakash Bhat. James Donahee. Alexis Stone. Jeffrey Wilson.

When I come to again, I am surprised to find John smiling.

"How are you feeling, my lady?" he asks. His voice has reverted to its usual cheer, and just a hint of sadness still shines behind his eyes.

I find his question completely inappropriate, and I am confused. It is not like John to be insensitive. I glare at him.

He steps back.

"Oh!" he says and blushes. "Oh my goodness! I'm so sorry! You don't know?"

"Kat, have you been sick a lot lately?" John asks.

"I... well..." I stammer, and I am crying. "I have been sick every day lately. Do I have it, John? Do I have the same cancer?"

John wags his finger in mock scolding. "Doctor, you should know better," he says, and the smile upon his face is sheer agony.

"No, no, my dear, you don't have cancer. You, my lady, are going to have my best friend's baby." His eyes well up with tears again.

It is our third date, and Jeff takes my hand across our dinner table.

"I have no children," he says, "although..."-he pauses for a moment-"I would have liked to, I think..."

"Where is it?" I ask. "Did I lose it?"

"Laa, ya sayeedatii," says the nurse. "You've not lost it."

"Then where is it?" I repeat again.

I am crying, and I am laughing. No wonder they thought I was delusional. I had been talking about a plant.

I am delusional.

Oh Isis, thou great enchantress, heal me, deliver me from all evil, bad, typhonic things, from demoniacal and deadly diseases and pollutions of all sorts that rush upon me, as thou didst deliver and release thy son Horus!

-The Ebers Papyrus, ca. 1500 BCE

Chapter Twenty-Five.

John and I step out of the hospital onto a busy street, and the infernal Egyptian heat engulfs us. The air has a familiar sweet, thick scent. Pedestrians rush through converging lanes of traffic, and none of them look like tourists. The men wear long pants and long sleeves. The majority of women are in hijab or niqab.

I am wearing a new pair of jeans and a new long-sleeved T-shirt, clothing brought to the hospital by John to replace articles that had been shredded and soaked in a crocodile attack and then cut from my body by doctors.

"Where are we?" I ask, but I already know.

"Cairo," John says. "I had you airlifted here, to a better hospital."

"I don't have any ID..."

John raises an eyebrow and smiles sardonically. "This is Egypt. I forked over some money to get you patched up, and nobody cared who you were. But they did a nice job. I watched."

I turn and smile gratefully at my husband's best friend.

The crocodile had grabbed me by the upper leg. Its teeth had, fortunately, missed major arteries, and the wounds were mostly superficial. But I still feel like I'm walking in skinny jeans made of fish hooks.

John wraps a supportive arm around me. We begin slowly down the street, when a woman in a black galabia and niqab shoves her way rudely between us and whispers urgently into my ear, "Get out of sight! Right now!"

As if to reinforce her statement, a bullet whizzes within feet of my head and smashes into the stone wall behind me.

Whether by instinct or weakness, I am not sure, but I hit the ground. John falls as well, almost on top of me, shielding my body with his own. Another gunshot rings out, and we crawl behind a large dumpster in the street.

I do not need to guess the identity of the woman who lunges behind it with us. "Can you walk?" she asks.

"I think so," I say, "but I'm not sure how fast or how far."

"This way," she says, and I am relieved to remember that Alyssa Iacovani knows Cairo as well as she knows Naples. She was educated here.

I stand again, grimacing from the pain in my leg. I reach into my purse and withdraw the pistol still in my possession. It is a model similar to my own.

The gunshots assaulting my ears, even through thick, protective earmuffs, used to startle me. Now, they do not.

My five-year-old son is dead.

Some of the men at the gun range used to make me uneasy. Now, they do not. I know many of them by name.

My son was shot through my living room window by a gangster named Lawrence Naden. It was a stray bullet, the by-product of a drive-by shooting aimed at another gangster. I don't feel safe anymore. In fact, I never did.

Without taking my eyes off the target before me, I reach down and feel for the lever that will move it swiftly backward. The target flutters, and the concentric circles on the generic figure's chest become smaller and smaller.

Naden is in prison. But this fact provides no comfort.

When I am satisfied with the distance, I release the lever and train the pistol on the center circle. I imagine the face of Lawrence Naden as I begin rapidly pulling the trigger.

The metal is familiar in my hand. I hold onto John's strong shoulder for balance with one arm as I pivot on my good leg and begin shooting.

Ducking as frequently as possible behind whatever cover we can find, the three of us flee down the street. I can see nobody behind us, only transient flashes of clothing and steel as our pursuers also take cover behind various objects. At the corner, we turn and begin making our way down a cross street. Gunshots continue to ring out, and, with each, I cringe and look at Alyssa and John. Nobody is hit.

John is still supporting me like a human crutch.

"Can you run for a moment?" Alyssa asks.

"For a moment," I reply.

"You will need to. Because there is no cover in the alley we need to go through."

"OK," I say and take a deep breath of the hot, sweet, cloying smog of Cairo. "Let's go."

We enter the alley Alyssa spoke of. She was right. There is no cover; the alley is not even wide enough for a single car. I let go of John, and the three of us run blindly toward the other end of the alley.

Behind me, I hear hurried footsteps. Then I hear another gunshot and a scream. I turn just in time to see Alyssa fall to the ground.

I halt in my tracks. At last, I am able to make out the shooter. It is not Dante. It is not Rossi. I don't care. I take aim and shoot, and he falls.

Alyssa is lying on the ground. She clutches her shoulder and moans. John looks hastily from her to me, and back again.

"Help her," I say. "I can run."

The alley is short, and we have almost reached a corner where it merges with another street. I can hear commotion beyond, and I realize that Alyssa was leading us directly into a dense, massive crowd.

Good move, I think.

I prepare myself for the pain in my leg and then make a last mad dash through the alley. I can hear John following, slowly, with the weight of Alyssa in his arms.

We emerge into pedestrian chaos. Both sides of the narrow, crooked street are crammed with haphazardly erected vendors' tents. The aromas of spices, tobacco, and other goods mingle into a scent as familiar as it is centuries old. Within the never-ending jumble of tents, I see jewelry, hookahs, clothing, foods, and trinkets of every kind. Men in galabias and children in blue jeans reach toward me, motioning for me to come closer, beckoning me into their shops like clowns enticing me into a circus funhouse. A woman in a brightly colored hijab darts into the street to display a rich fabric for my eyes and hands to explore.

The gunshots have ceased.

I turn to Alyssa, who is still in John's arms. Her eyes are half open, and she smiles wearily.