Diehl hadn’t really expected to land the license, but he did, and suddenly he faced the prospect of gearing up for FDA approval for clinical trials. The cost of clinical trials started at a million dollars, and went rapidly to ten million a pop, not counting downstream costs and after-marketing expenses. He could no longer rely solely on his wife’s money. He needed outside financing.

That was when he discovered just how risky venture capitalists considered cytokines to be. Many cytokines, such as interleukins, had taken years to come to market. And many others were known to be dangerous, even deadly, to patients. And then Frank Burnet had brought a lawsuit, casting doubt on BioGen’s ownership of the cell line. Diehl had trouble getting investors to even meet with him. In the end, he had to accept smiling, suntanned Jack Watson.

But Watson, Diehl knew, wanted nothing less than to take over BioGen and throw Rick Diehl out on his ass.

“Jack! Fantastic speech! Fantastic!” Rick extended his hand, as Watson came backstage at last.

“Yeah. Glad you liked it.” Watson didn’t shake his hand. Instead, he unclipped his wireless transmitter and dropped it in Diehl’s palm. “Take care of this, Rick.”

“Sure, Jack.”

“Your wife here?”

“No, Karen couldn’t make it.” Diehl shrugged. “Thing with the kids.”

“I’m sorry she missed this speech,” Watson said.

“I’ll see she gets the DVD,” Diehl said.

“But we got the bad news out there,” Watson said. “That’s the point. Everybody now knows there’s a lawsuit, they know Burnet is a bad guy, and they know we’re on top of it. That’s the important thing. The company’s now perfectly positioned.”

Diehl said, “Isthat why you agreed to give the speech?”

Watson stared at him. “You think Iwant to come to Vegas? Christ.” He unclipped the microphone, handed it to Diehl. “Take care of this, too.”