Author's Note: The setting and some of the characters in this story will be familiar to those who have read Lattelady's excellent piece "Therapy Sessions." (And if you haven't read it, go and do that now. It is a fabulous piece of work.) I began working on this story a year ago, intrigued by Latte's set-up, and began thinking, in the intervals of her updates, how it might play differently, how Latte could have handled the story. So, for my own amusement I began writing that story, using the bones of Latte's. I want to make it clear that Lattelady know about this story and does not object to what I have done here. I have her permission to publish this.

Disclaimer: I consider this fair use, not a violation of anyone's copyright. Besides, no one else seems to want these characters but us, so why can't we play with 'em?

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Present day:

Jacob Hood was a genius. A real, live certified genius. He's was also a 42 year old man. So there was absolutely no reason for him to feel flustered at being on an airplane, on a flight from Boston to Washington, D.C. by himself. Or so he told himself.

But truth be told, Jacob was flustered. It had been almost two years since he had traveled unaccompanied. But this flight was different, very different. It just wasn't the absence of Rachel Young, his handler and bodyguard, and more recently Felix Lee, who provided advance support and tactical assistance for the team.

It was that this time the flight was definitely a flight. Jacob was on the run from the FBI. Most specifically, from Carson Dilworth, his temporary handler. Jacob sighed and closed his eyes as the debacle that was the last few days played across mind.

Beginning three days ago:

The call had come in from a hospital in Boston, by way of a very influential U.S. senator. Three infants in the maternity ward, three previously healthy, totally normal infants, had developed a virulent strain of swine flu.

Jacob had been enraged when he was finally able to access the records for the maternity ward. He understood immediately why the hospital administrator had fought him tooth and nail to prevent their release. The three infants that had brought him and his team to Boston had been the tip of the iceberg.

Jacob discovered that for the past 18 months, at irregular intervals, two or three infants had developed the same problems. They became ill, and then there was a slight period of improvement, as if somehow their immune systems had been forced into overdrive. But after a few days, their immune systems would collapse, and the infants would die.

Nineteen infants had died, and now three more were dying. To Jacob it was obvious; someone, somehow and for some reason, was experimenting on these infants. The hospital had been able to cover it up because it was in a lower-middle class section of town; the parents of the children were either the working poor, unemployed or recent immigrants. They were the kind of people easily intimidated by the hospital.

Until now. The area hadn't always that way. It was once solidly upper middle-class. The wife of the senator had been born in that hospital. She was sentimental; she wanted her first child born there also. But when things had gone wrong, her husband had used his influence to get the Special Science Advisor for the FBI to look into things.

By the time Hood had finished with the hospital records, he realized that the three infants likely had less than two or three days to live. He had Felix commandeer space in the hospital lab and technicians to assist him.

The hospital administrator tried to object, but Felix had learned well from Special Agent Young. Murmuring about the "Patriot Act," and "Homeland Security," with references to "the Senator" thrown in for good measure, had been enough to cow the man. Jacob himself had overseen the collection of blood, urine, feces, and saliva from the infants for testing.

But when it came to analysing the results, Jacob ran into a wall. This was when he missed Rachel the most. Technically, Rachel was his handler and bodyguard. At first she had resented being assigned to his detail. But slowly she had grown interested in the work he did. She was fascinated by the science and was so damn smart it was a pleasure for him to explain, to teach her. Rachel had slowly become, at least in his eyes, less a bodyguard and more of a partner.

To analyze the results Jacob had to rely on himself, Felix, and lab techs he wasn't sure he could trust. Felix was good, but he wasn't Rachel. He lacked her ability to quickly skim a document looking for relevant information. Dilworth, Rachel's replacement while she was out on medical leave, had made it quite clear that it was his job to get Dr. Hood where he needed to be and to insure his safety once there. It was up to the Hood and Agent Lee to work the cases. Nothing Jacob could say could induce the older agent to take an interest in his work.

It wasn't only for the grunt work that Jacob missed Rachel. She was good at reading people, at picking up on the emotions they projected, a skill that he knew he lacked. Rachel would have noticed Clare a lot sooner and brought her to his attention.

Clare was a nurse's aide in the maternity ward. She was one of the few who had volunteered to help him and Felix. She was young and clearly upset over what was happening to "her" babies. Rachel, he was sure, would have realized what her distress meant. She would have understood that Clare's hesitant questions as to the motive of whoever was behind these illnesses was more than just idle curiosity.

Jacob had dismissed her concerns brusquely telling her that there was no good reason for what was happening here, only a monster, a psychopath would experiment on innocent children. He had stared in surprise as Clare left the lab sobbing at his words, but he, as it turned out, incorrectly dismissed her behaviour as misplaced sentiment.

They had been working for close to 30 hours without sleep. With no new tests to be run, Dilworth had insisted they return to the hotel to rest. Jacob had gathered together the results of the tests and the records from the infants who had previously been stricken. Felix grabbed the records from the maternity ward for the last 18 months, records that showed what infants had been present, their condition at all times in the ward, and who had access to them.

He and Felix continued to work in the common area of the suite while Dilworth dozed on a sofa. It was midnight when they got the information they needed. Not only the who and why, but also maybe a how to save the infected infants. Felix was cross-checking the names of infants who had been in the maternity ward during the relevant months and their conditions upon discharge. He was excited to realize that in each of the previous two cycles, four babies had been infected. In the first cycle, one had survived and in the next, two of the four had survived. After studying the records, Jacob realized instantly what this meant: someone had been working a vaccine; something to enhance the infants' immune systems.

The second break was more chilling. As Jacob was explaining to Dilworth and Felix the importance of tracking down the surviving babies in order to test their blood, the phone in the hotel suite rang. It was Clare, and she had asked to talk to Dr. Hood. He could barely make out her words, she had been sobbing so hard.

Clare told him that she was sure that Vinny would never hurt anyone on purpose. That Vinny was only trying to make the babies healthier. She had informed Jacob that she was going to the hospital to see Vinny right now and that she would bring him to see Dr. Hood. Surely Dr. Hood would realize that Vinny only meant to do good. Jacob had shouted at Clare not to see Vinny – that he would go right to the hospital and meet her. He was still pleading with her not to talk to Vinny when Clare had hung up.

Jacob had been frantic; they had to get out of the hotel now. They had to track down those infants, get blood samples and get to the hospital to intercept Clare before she met up with this Vinny, whoever he was. Felix once again proved his worth.

The name Vinny rang a bell, it turned out there was a Dr. Vincent Marchette who worked in the hospital's pharmaceutical department. Jacob quickly told Felix to head to the hospital to intercept Clare and the young agent was out of the door in a flash. Jacob explained to Dilworth that they would have to track down the surviving infants.

As he turned to the door, Dilworth caught him by the arm. There was no way Dilworth was letting Hood out to roam around Boston at midnight pounding on doors. They'd have the cops on them before they knew it and would be lucky not spend the rest of the night in a jail cell. They could wait until morning and have the proper authorities approach the families to ask for their cooperation.

Jacob had lost his temper and began shouting at Dilworth to either leave him the hell alone or get with the program; they might not have until morning. He then uttered what were probably the damming words to Dilworth – 'if Rachel were here...' Jacob had invoked the absolute competence and perfection of Special Agent Rachel Young once too often for Dilworth's taste.

Snarling that "his little girlfriend" wasn't around, Dilworth had shoved Hood's arm behind his back in a lock hold, quickly rifled his pockets to remove his cell phone, and shoved him into one of the bedrooms in the suite. Dilworth then secured the door so it could not be opened from the inside.

Jacob had stood in shocked silence for a moment. He could not believe what Dilworth had just done. None of his other handlers, no matter how badly he had annoyed them, had ever laid hands on him in anger. He then began pounding on the door, demanding that Dilworth let him out, they had no time for games, they had to act now.

When no answer was forthcoming, Jacob had turned to the phone on the bedside table. He would call Felix, it would waste time, but it couldn't be helped. He picked up the phone to discover that there was no dial tone. While he was uselessly pounding on the door Dilworth had called the front desk and had the phone disabled. At this point his rage turned from red hot to ice cold. Dilworth would pay for this behaviour. Jacob sat down on the bed, leaning against the headboard with his arms crossed against his chest, starring at the door. Waiting for the inevitable moment when Dilworth would have to open it.

That moment came at 3:00 a.m. when Dilworth's cell phone began to ring. It was Felix; he had been trying to get hold of "the Doc" for at least an hour. Why hadn't he picked up? Where were they? Before Dilworth could answer, Felix told him to get the Doc and get down to the hospital ASAP. The case had just blown up in his face, things were going to hell in a hand basket; they needed Hood on site pronto.

Dilworth cautiously unsecured the door and looked in to find Jacob sitting like a statue on the bed. He rose quickly as Dilworth relayed Felix's news and brushed past him without a word; he did not speak to Dilworth once on the way to the hospital. Dilworth was unnerved, never once in the seven weeks he had been assigned to Hood's detail had he seen the man in this kind of mood. It had never occurred to Dilworth that the gentle man had a formidable temper. Dilworth was beginning to regret his impulsive action.

Once they arrived at the hospital they discovered that Felix had not exaggerated, things indeed were hell bound. Clare was dead. When Clare wasn't in the maternity ward as he expected, Felix had enlisted the help of hospital security to find her. They found her body in the deserted pharmaceutical lab.

Felix figured that Marchette had killed her when Clare confronted him and begged him to talk to Hood. The security guards then went on a sweep of the hospital looking for Marchette. They found him in the parking deck and when he tried to run from them, one of the poorly trained guards panicked and shot him in the back, killing him instantly. The good thing was that Felix, searching the doctor's car, had discovered a binder of lab notes and the doctor's laptop. The bad thing was that the laptop was encrypted.

The Boston police, who had been called when Clare's body was discovered, supplied a forensic computer expert to break into Marchette's computer. While waiting for the woman to complete her work, Hood poured over Marchette's lab notes. Although providing plenty of information, it was lacking in the precise formulas and chemical compositions that Marchette had used in his experiments.

Jacob was shocked at what he found. It seemed that Marchette would first have Clare inject the infants with a strain of the H1N1 virus. The virus overwhelmed the infant's developing immune systems; the flu would develop into a life-threatening condition within a matter of hours.

Marchette was working a vaccine to boost the immune system. First he injected the infants with an agent that stimulated their TLR8 receptors. This would stimulate the infant's immune systems causing them to produce antibodies at a rate far exceeding the norm. He would then administer a vaccine that, along with the TRL8 enhancing agent, would restore and strenghten the immune system. It would have been a God-send for patients undergoing chemotherapy.

Time was running out. Unlike on television, it had taken the computer tech hours to crack the encryption on Marchette's machine. As she explained to Jacob, she had to work slowly to make sure that there were no hidden programs that would wipe the hard drive if the machine was incorrectly accessed. She had taken seriously his admonition that lives depended on her work and she didn't want to make any mistakes.

It seemed like forever before Jacob could access the notes and formulas that Marchette had so painstakingly recorded. It took an equally long time for him and a team of researchers from the Harvard Medical School to piece together Marchette's work and discover exactly what was in the vaccine Marchette had developed and then to replicate the vaccine for the dying infants.

Jacob also found Marchette's journal on the laptop. The man had kept meticulous notes on all phases of his experiment. Marchette had seduced Clare. He had promised to marry the young woman as soon as his research, which he told Clare was for a "super" vitamin, was perfected.

Poor Clare didn't realize the connection between the injections she was giving the babies and the ones who sickened and died, until she talked to Dr. Hood. During each cycle Marchette had given her several syringes, some containing only water. Since only a small number of the infants Clare injected became ill, she believed her lover's contention that it was coincidence.

The thing that appalled Jacob the most was the reason Marchette gave for conducting his experiments in this hospital, on these children. Marchette had counted on the hospital covering up the deaths; no hospital wants to face multiple lawsuits. This made the infants, in Marchette's words 'just as good as and cheaper than lab rats!' Jacob also found references to payments being made to Marchette by a Boston area pharmaceutical lab. While he had no use for "big pharma" he couldn't believe a reputable company could be involved in something like this.

Jacob sat slumped in the waiting room of the maternity wing with Dilworth and Felix. It had been 48 hours since he had discovered what was happening to these infants. If his guesses were right, the discovery of the vaccine may have come too late to do any good. One of the three babies had already died.

The three men had waited in silence; Jacob because he was still angry with Dilworth, Dilworth because he was finally worried about the consequences of his actions the night before, and Felix who had picked up on the tension between the two other men and wasn't sure of the cause.

Jacob's head snapped up as the sound of a woman's sobbing could be heard from down the hall. His gut tightened, he knew what that crying meant, it meant that he was too late, that one, or more likely both, of the remaining infants had died. The hospital administrator then hurried into the waiting room.

He couldn't believe it, but the man had a look of relief on his face. It seems that the vaccine had not been too late for all of the infants. In no small irony, it was the senator's son who was spared. It was then that Dilworth, trying to mend fences with Hood, caused the explosion.

Dilworth began by remarking that all's well that ends well. That was too much for Jacob. His temper, which he had kept coldly in check since Dilworth had manhandled him, erupted.

How in God's name Jacob wondered could anyone think this misbegotten case had ended well? There were two dead infants, that poor girl Clare murdered, and Marchette shot in the back by an idiot who should have never been allowed to handle a gun. Not to mention the previous nineteen deaths that Marchette had caused.

Dilworth had then made the mistake of trying to defend himself. Marchette was a psychopath, he would have ended up with a needle in his arm anyway; the girl Clare, she was just as guilty, she had to know what she was doing, she deserved what she got; as for the sick infants, sure it was sad kids died, but hey, at least they had saved the important one. The one whose father was in a position to do the FBI some good.

That Dilworth could so casually dismiss the deaths around them and so cynically elevate one infant above the others based on his parentage stunned Jacob. So he did the only thing he could think of, he decked Dilworth.

Felix had gaped at the good doctor. He honestly didn't think that Hood had it in him to hit anyone, but the right cross the doc had used to knock Dilworth out was as pretty as any he had ever seen. Felix dropped to his knees to check on his unconscious colleague.

As he did so he heard Hood mutter, "That's it. I'm done, I can't do this anymore." By the time Felix had scrambled to his feet Hood was out of the waiting room and nowhere to be found.