If the security arrangements were invisible during the day this certainly was not true at night. In the short walk from the office block to the laboratory building they encountered two guards on patrol — both with vicious-looking dogs on strained leashes. The area was brilliantly lit, while TV cameras turned and followed them as they walked through the grounds. Another guard, his Uzi submachine gun ready, was waiting outside the lab doors. Although the guard knew them all, including his own boss, he had to see their personal IDs before he unlocked the security box. J.J. waited patiently until the light inside turned green. He entered the correct code, then pressed his thumb to the pressure plate. The computer checked his thumbprint as well. Toth repeated this procedure, then in response to the computer’s query, punched in the number of visitors.

“Computer needs your thumbprint too, Dr. McCrory.”

Only after this had been done did the motors hum in the frame and the door clicked open.

“I’ll take you as far as the laboratory,” Toth said, “but I’m not cleared for entry at this time. Call me on the red phone when you are ready to leave.”

The laboratory was brilliantly lit. Visible through the armor-glass door was a thin, nervous man in his early twenties. He ran his fingers anxiously through his unruly red hair as he waited.

“He looks a little young for this level of responsibility,” J. J. Beckworth said.

“He is young — but you must realize that he finished college before he was sixteen years old,” Bill McCrory said. “And had his doctorate by the time he was nineteen. If you have never seen a genius before you are looking at one now. Our headhunters followed his career very closely, but he was a loner with no corporate interest, turned down all of our offers.”