Dr. Davis picked up Chinese on the way home, pulled into the garage and went into his house. As he entered the kitchen from the garage someone grabbed him from behind. He tried to wrestle free but the two of them were too strong. He got his right hand free, reached into his pocket to find a weapon, possibly his keys. He found a pen, pulled it out and rammed it at the person on his left. There was a cry and the person’s grip on him lessened. He hunted for another weapon. His keys had slid below the pocket recorder he carried to make notes and he could not retrieve them. The one person pressed something over his face as he struggled to get the keys. The rag had something on it and he felt himself loosing consciousness. He tried one more time to grab the keys and failed. Then everything went black.

Saturday

Dr. Davis regained consciousness. He was in his bed but he couldn’t remember how he got there. His head ached like a hangover. Slowly it started coming into focus. He remembered the struggle. He wondered if the men were still there. Would they kill him? Over the last four weeks he had several threats. All stated he must stop his research. Someone wanted his work to stop for some reason. He tried to get up but his legs felt heavy and would not move. He pulled back the sheet. His legs were badly discolored from just above the knees to his feet. At first he thought they looked like they had been beaten then he recognized the unmistakable signs of flesh that had been hard frozen and thawed. About three inches above the knees there was something around his legs. He touched it. A piece of steel wire encircled each of his legs so tightly it cut deep groves into the skin. His first thought was that if these were not taken off quickly his legs would develop gangrene. He needed something to cut the wire. Then he realized that if the wires were cut the poisons in his lower legs would spread to the rest of his body. He tried but couldn’t get out of bed. As he started moving about the phone rang. He reached over to the night stand and picked it up.

“Dr. Davis.”

“This is Doris at your office. We got a call from your phone last night with no message. Did you want something?”