Late one afternoon shortly before Christmas we were sitting contentedly in front of the fire in Pat's apartment when the front door buzzer sounded. She pressed the speaker button. "Hello, who's there?" "It's Hallam. I've brought you a visitor. May we come up?" "Certainly, come right in." A few moments later they walked through the opened door. "This is Inspector James of the RCMP," said Hallam, introducing a tall, thin, grey-haired man in civilian clothes. "Won't you sit down?" Pat indicated chairs by the fire. "How about a drink?" I said to the Inspector. "If you're having one." "We were going to. Dr. Hallam likes Scotch and water. With a name like yours you might like the same." "That will be fine, thank you." I brought their drinks and poured our usual gin and Italian vermouth for Pat and myself. "Inspector James has been in charge of the investigation into the virus warfare theory," Dr. Hallam began. "He knows your stories already but something new has come up and he wanted to talk to you." He settled back in his chair and looked over at James. Inspector James took his cue. "Since Dr. Hallam proved that the aerosol bomb contained virus, we have been trying to track down all possible agents, and our maritime division has been searching for the ship off our coast. We have been in constant contact with the FBI and the US Coastguard, and through them, with the US Armed Forces. As far as we can determine, one group of saboteurs inoculated the Vancouver area, the Interior of British Columbia and the Pacific Northwest. Then they disappeared." "You actually traced some of them?" Pat asked. "No, I'm afraid we didn't," James said ruefully. "We base our conclusions on indirect evidence, stories like those Dr. Macdonald found in the public health reports, you know, aerosol bombs triggered off accidentally and so on. The epidemic pattern in BC is now following a more natural course so we believe the agents left ... probably they were recalled right after that fight you had." "There might still be some undercover agents left," I guessed. "Natural epidemics tend to die out, even as virulent as this one is. However, if they give it a boost from time to time, they might get eighty or ninety percent of the population. Anything less wouldn't be too damaging, we could make up the population deficit in a few years."