Her back ached from standing hunched over an operating table staring down for two hours at a pop, four pops a day, stressed by the growing demand from aging boomers who sought her out surgery because she left no visible scars.

Working as a plastic surgeon was less glamorous than most people imagined. Her eyes and head were weary from focusing on the smallest of sutures, and at the moment she had to concentrate to not see double.

Her lids felt like closing as her gaze wandered over to the next line of waiting customers.

He'd been staring at her from behind dropped sunglasses. Their eyes met for only a moment before he reflexively flinched and glanced away.

She watched him for several seconds and wondered if he might turn back and acknowledge her. Instead, he acted like he hadn't seen her.

Even had the memory of their previous encounter been fresher and her mind more awake, it was unlikely she could have recalled his name correctly, not with the sheer number of people on whom she operated.

But she'd still recognized his face (just as he, she was certain, had recognized hers). Lately, such encounters with Mister X had grown increasingly more frequent. It seemed like she ran into him (well, not the same him but the most similar of incarnations) almost everywhere she went, these nameless men with their new faces too terrified to say hello.

She glanced back to see what this particular Mister X was buying. Three small black jars of the most expensive Russian Beluga caviar. His maid and cook were probably out shopping at this very moment rounding up the rest of the evening's staples but were considered too unrefined by him to select what mattered most.

It was the same Russian Beluga she'd noticed on the shelf while she'd been shopping, already too old and obscenely overpriced. Not that Mister X would likely give a damn were she to tell him. No, he, like most of her patients, was probably a man at the top, a man who had far too much money to worry about such trifles.

The customer at the register walked off and those in line trudged one step forward. Dr. Hudson was still third from the cashier and wondered if she should just put back the hand-painted ceramic tureen her husband had asked her to pick up on the way home. It was elaborately decorated and would have made a most appealing serving dish for caviar.

Caviar—Dr. Hudson knew plenty about the subject.

She'd grown up in Seattle where her older brothers had worked their college summers helping to process the precious roe of the White Sturgeon from the rivers of the Pacific Northwest. A living dinosaur of the fish world, the sturgeon had once been one of the most abundant species of freshwater fish on the North American continent.

It looked like a huge catfish, only uglier. With a snout the shape of a torpedo, the fish had a leathery skin covered with five rows of armor plates instead of scales. It grew slowly and could live a hundred years, ultimately attaining a length of twenty-five feet and weighing in at over a ton.

It scavenged the river bottom with its sensory whiskers, vacuuming with a siphon-like mouth, living off of insects, worms, scraps of plant material, and, ironically, fish eggs. In place of a spine, the fish possessed a backbone of weak cartilage that did little to support its enormous weight once it was removed from the water.

Mister X was still ignoring her, staring straight ahead with his sunglasses now pulled up, and so there little to keep her wearied mind from reminiscing.

There was a time when the biggest fish were so plentiful that a few pennies could buy a serving of the best caviar available, when caviar was considered a form of junk food on which to wean babies or to use as bait. But today, the behemoths were long gone, and a ten footer was considered a whopper.

Of course, it was only the female sturgeon that people cared about, the sex that carried the hidden treasure guarded by its seeminly impenetrable antique exterior.

The line grew one person shorter. Dr. Hudson glanced furtively over towards Mister X. He'd rotated his body so that their faces could not possibly meet again. She could see in front and in back of his ear—no scars—and was proud of her surgical artistry.

He was also purchasing some golden caviar obtained from whitefish . . .

. . . and red caviar harvested from the salmon, both of which were cheaper and neither of which was considered the authentic item.

Real caviar was always black and came only from one of the twenty or so species of sturgeons worldwide.

Just prior to spawning, the female's ovaries could produce millions of one-eighth inch black eggs that might comprise a good twenty per cent of the fish's weight.

As the supply of sturgeon had diminished, the global demand for its roe had risen sharply, turning it into an international delicacy and prompting the overfishing that led to a vicious cycle of supply, demand, and then depletion.

Most species were on the verge of extinction and fell under some form of token regulatory protection. No group was truly serious about addressing the problem because of the specter of lost profits. Modern-day sturgeons had to contend with poaching, smugglers, and even the local mafias who freely patrolled the Caspian Sea.

Dr. Hudson came to momentarily as she sensed the sudden movement all around her. Finally, a some progress. The single customer in front of her had only one item to purchase.

The lady was having trouble keeping her fidgety boy quiet. Dr. Hudson sensed a twinge of jealousy mixed with sadness. She'd chosen not have children so that she could devote her full time and energy to developing and refining her surgical technique.

The meat of the sturgeon was not particularly tasty and considered all but valueless in comparison to its roe. Some of it was pickled or smoked as an oddity, or flash-frozen, packaged in plastic, and then sold as nameless fish meat at discount markets.

There were other known uses for the carcass -- the skin could be tanned into ornamental leather, the air bladder was a source of isinglass used to clarify wine, its fat could be rendered into glue, and, of course, any big fish served as a prized sport trophy for the vacationing fisherman.

Today, though, most sturgeon dealers cared only about the roe and left the rest of the fish to rot.

Dr. Hudson stepped forward and placed her ceramic tureen on the counter. Mister X was still avoiding her.

During spawning in the rivers, sturgeons were captured in nets and the females transported still alive to the factories. There, the fish were knocked unconscious by a blow to the head and the eggs quickly eviscerated from the body before the fish could secrete a stress-related chemical that destroyed the roe's flavor.

After the eggs were strained, washed, and graded by size and firmness, they were salted, bottled, and shipped off to the airports. Her brothers had gutted many a creature much bigger than a human.

She'd learned from watching them that the real beauty of an object often dwelled deep inside, but somehow this realization escaped her when she'd selected her medical specialty. She'd always intended to a surgeon. But while she might have chosen to help the sick or disfigured, she'd been lured by the glamour of luxury surgery.

Mister X and Dr. Hudson completed their purchases at precisely the same time and walked into the store's front aisle in converging directions.