Kenji Noda settled the McDonnell Douglas onto the pad and cut the engines. Bartlett never let himself worry about the noise. The patients in the clinical trials were here at no charge, so they really couldn't complain, particularly since they were now part of what was possibly turning out to be the greatest advance in the history of medicine. If your Alzheimer's had just been reversed at no charge, you weren't going to complain about a little hubbub on the roof. "I'll wait here," Noda said opening the side door. His bald pate, reminiscent of an eighteenth-century samurai, glistened in the early spring sun. Bartlett nodded, knowing that his pilot did not trust physicians and hospitals. Taking care of your body was your responsibility, Kenji Noda frequently declared and he trained his own daily. He ate no meat and drank gallons of green tea. When he practiced _kendo_ swordplay, he had the reflexes of a man half his age. He never discussed why he had left Japan, but Bartlett assumed it was for reasons best left in the dark. Bartlett headed down the metal stairs leading to the self- service elevator. This daily ordeal of flying out to give a blood sample and to see Kristen was increasingly unsettling. As he inserted his magnetic card into the elevator security box, he felt his hand shaking slightly. So close to the eternal dream of humankind. So close. How was it going to end? _Sunday, April 5 8:38 A.M. _ "Dr. Vee, I'm feeling so much better, I can't tell you." Emma Rosen reached out and caught her physician by the collar of his lab coat, pulling him down and brazenly bussing his cheek. She'd been longing to do this for three weeks but hadn't mustered the nerve until now. "This morning I climbed the stairs to the third floor, twice, up and back without any chest pain. Oy, can you believe? It's a miracle." Karl Van de Vliet was a couple of inches over six feet, with a trim face and sandy hair that some older patients judged too long for a physician. His English normally was perfect, though sometimes he made a mistake when trying to sound too colloquial. But everyone, young and old adored his retiring Dutch manner and those deep blue eyes that carried some monumental sadness from the past. They also were sure he would soon be recognized worldwide as the miracle worker he was. The prospect of a Nobel didn't actually seem that far-fetched. "Emma, please, I begged you to rest." He sighed and checked the dancing electronic pens of her EKG. They were in the basement of the Dorian Institute. Upstairs, the "suites"--nobody called them rooms--were intended to invoke a spa more than a clinic, so most of the heavy-duty diagnostic equipment was kept in a row of examining rooms down near the subterranean lab. "For another week at least. Why won't you listen? You've been a very naughty girl. I may have to tell your daughter."