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invariably resented outside interest in what they were doing, regarding it as unwarranted interference, so discretion was of the utmost importance until at least, the facts were established.
    Adam Dewar was a doctor specialising in medical investigations. He was well aware that there was no more sensitive or conservative body than the medical profession. Closing ranks was almost a knee-jerk response to outside questioning. The well-guarded mystique of the witch doctor was still extant in late twentieth century medicine. The less the patient knows the better.
    Dewar had been on leave for the past four weeks. This was part of the pattern of the job. Investigations were often intensive, requiring long hours of work and high stress levels. Occasionally they could be downright dangerous or even life threatening. When they were completed, leave was generous. Dewar had spent his staying in a small village in the south of France which he had known since childhood, enjoying the wine, the food and sunshine of Provence. He had however spent the final week preparing for his return in fairly hard physical exercise. He had swam three miles daily in the sea off San Raphael and used the cool of the evening to run respectable distances along the vineyard paths between neighbouring villages. He felt reasonably fit again not that his last assignment had taken much out of him in a physical sense.
    He had been sent to look into the apparently high death rate among patients of a Lincolnshire surgeon when compared with statistics for similar operations in other parts of the country. There had in fact, been no criminal aspect to this case. The surgeon in question had merely grown old in his job and had been unaware of his failing powers. His strong personality - common in surgeons, had prevented colleagues from doing much about the situation. It was one thing knowing what was wrong, quite another saying it. The man was also very influential in senior medical circles, circles which could make or break careers. The situation had been allowed to develop until the Sci-Med computer had draw attention to the statistical blip.
    Dewar had not been subject to the man’s power and influence and he had a strong personality too. Under the terms of the Sci-Med Inspectorate he had the power to resolve the situation and he had. The surgeon had been retired. Happily, the end result had been achieved without scandal or rancour thanks to the application of common sense.
    Dewar knocked on the door and responded to the immediate invitation to enter.
    A tall silver-haired man stood up behind his desk and held out his hand. He was John Macmillan, Dewar’s boss and the director of the Sci-Med Inspectorate.
    ‘ Good to see you, Dewar. How are you feeling after your break?’
    ‘ Very well, thank you, sir.’
    ‘ Good, What d’you know about smallpox?’
    Dewar shrugged his shoulders. ‘Not a lot, I’m afraid. It was a terrible disease in its time but it’s been extinct for many years. A triumph for the World Health Organisation, as I recall. It was cited as an example of the power of vaccination programmes when I was at medical school. Quite poetic really when you think that the very first instance of vaccination was Edward Jenner’s work on that very disease back in the eighteenth century. It took just under two hundred years to wipe out something that had been around as long as mankind.’
    ‘ Wipe out may be a little strong,’ said Macmillan.
    ‘ You mean it’s broken out again?’ asked an incredulous Dewar.
    ‘ Not exactly but this has newly come in from a joint WHO/United Nations body. They’d like our help.’
    Macmillan handed the documentation over to Dewar who flicked through it and quickly realised he’d need more time to assimilate it.
    ‘ When you’re ready, I’d like you to handle it,’ said Macmillan.

 
     
     
     
    THREE
     
    Institute of Molecular Sciences
    Edinburgh, Scotland
    October 1997
     
    The door of lab 512 opened and a tall,