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He disappeared out the door and I shifted in my chair toward Slash. “What are you thinking?”

“I’m thinking Vaccitex is lucky to have Tim. For a largely solo effort, he’s done a damn good job. But they were right to bring us in. That firewall won’t last much longer.”

“My thinking exactly.”

I rolled my neck and shoulders when Tim walked back in the room.

“Hayden is available now if you want to stop by,” he said.

“Great. Let’s go.” I grabbed my laptop and Slash took the notepad.

We followed Tim to Hayden’s office. It wasn’t much bigger than Tim’s, minus all the books and paper piles stacked on the floor. Hayden rose from behind his desk and shook hands with us. We were ushered to a small round conference table in another part of the office and Tim took his leave.

“Thanks for coming.” Hayden looked at Slash. “Nice to finally meet you. We’re happy to have you on board and greatly appreciate your generous contribution to the effort.”

“My pleasure. It’s a worthy cause.”

“It is, indeed. Please have a seat. We consider ourselves quite fortunate to have you both on the team.”

I thought it better to wait until we actually did something before they considered themselves fortunate, but whatever. “We’ve got some questions for you after speaking with Tim,” I said.

“I’m sure you do. Ask away.”

I put my thoughts in order to make sure I asked the right questions. Given the timeline we were on, I didn’t want to be misinformed or make presumptions about anything.

“I realize I’m here to resolve the issue of information security, but I like to know the big picture because it helps me to put myself in the mind of a potential adversary. So, a couple of general questions first.” I opened my laptop and pulled up the document containing questions I’d compiled while on the airplane. “First, why are you field-testing the malaria vaccine in the rainforest of Brazil instead of Africa, where the mortality rate from malaria-related deaths is so much higher?”

“That’s an excellent question,” Hayden answered. “We’ve already tested the vaccine in various regions of Africa during Phase II, but in a much more limited capacity. That’s where we compiled the data results and it was shown to be dramatically effective. However, for large-scale testing, we wanted a different variation, and one where any potential consequences to the untested population serving as the control group would be less risky.”

“How would that be less risky?”

“Despite the fact that Brazil accounts for around half of the cases of malaria in the Western hemisphere, only about a hundred people actually die from the disease annually. That’s mostly due to improved treatments and a significant effort and investment by the Brazilian government. Most of those hundred, however, are children or the most vulnerable among the population. In addition, hundreds of thousands are affected by the flulike symptoms that accompany malaria, such as a high fever, chills, diarrhea, vomiting, dehydration and extreme fatigue. That creates a significant social and economic burden on the area, especially as many of those populations are rural famers and workers who, when affected by malaria, are unable to perform their jobs.”

I could see the sense in this. “So, by testing a larger segment of the population, it made sense to run the trials on another location.”

“Exactly. We chose the area for the research site carefully, and partially because there are seasonal differentiations of malaria and the transmission peaks are highest in this area for the next several months. Right now, the drugs we have to treat malaria are largely taken after the fact. But we are developing a vaccine against the bacteria, not just the viruses. Several companies want to be first, but none have had the success we have. We think that’s what has been driving someone to try to steal or corrupt what we’ve developed.”

“Can you provide a list of your potential competitors?”

“Of course. We’ve got competitors from Japan, Russia, India, China, Canada and the U.S. No surprise there, really. And those are just the ones we know about. I’ll have my assistant provide you with a compiled list. For the record, we are the only nonprofit organization in the bunch.”

“And the first to develop a vaccine,” Slash murmured. “Interesting.”

“Our scientists and staff are passionate about helping people,” Hayden explained. “I assure you, sometimes it makes all the difference.”

“Is there any one competitor that sticks out to you for one reason or another?” I asked.

“Actually there’s a couple. Star Pharma in India, and Acadia Solutions of Canada are the first two that leap to mind. But there are others.”

“Why these two in particular?” I asked.

“Both Lilith and I know the CEOs personally. Let’s just say we don’t share the same set of moral values with either of them. Not that I’m not accusing them, mind you, but I wouldn’t put it past them either.”

I jotted the names down. It gave me a place to start. “Tim said you were informed the email system had been penetrated.”

“Yes, it was quite a shock, but we’ve been careful not to overshare via emails. Regardless, we didn’t waste any time bringing you on board.”

“Tim made the right decision not to shut them out at this point,” I said. “It will allow us to backtrack them.”