“That’s unacceptable.”
“Is this your plan?” Roger says.
“It is.”
“It won’t work. “The government will discredit your announcement as so much nonsense. They’ll call it the latest conspiracy theory. In the absence of any hard evidence to back up your story, your information sources will quickly pull your comments, to avoid looking foolish. Not only that, but the idea of a human conduit to the Spanish Flu virus is so unimaginable, I doubt the respected news stations will even broadcast your story.”
“I don’t buy that, and when it comes down to watching us put a knife to your children’s throats, I think you’ll choose to let your family live. All you have to do to save them is tell your people that Rachel’s blood cells don’t match after all.”
“That’s the other part of your plan that won’t work.”
“Why not?”
“You’re too late,” Roger says.
“What do you mean?”
“I already gave them the go ahead, based on the preliminary tests. That’s why we allowed Sam to enter the facility yesterday. The project has been given a green light. As a bonus, Rachel has already given us an egg to test.”
Crestfallen, I look at Callie for support.
“I’m sorry, Donovan,” she says. “But that sounds like game, set and match. We can still kill his kids, though.”
“Wait here,” I say.
I leave the room, take the elevator to the parking garage, and get my duffel bag from the trunk of my rental car. When I get back to Roger’s room, I open the case and remove a metal cuff. After attaching it to Roger’s left ankle, I say, “You’re going to wear this until I personally remove it. In the meantime, you’re going to continue hosting the conference, and I’m going to be fifteen feet away from you, day and night, until it’s over. In addition, you’ll have no use of your cell phone, and I’ll be in your room, to monitor your calls.”
“You can’t just show up at this conference. It’s by invitation only. The world’s greatest scientists are there. Government officials. Ministers of Health from around the world—”
“And me.”
“How can I possibly explain your presence?”
“Tell them I’m your government-appointed body guard.”
He thinks about it. Then says, “What about my family?”
“I’ll hang onto them awhile longer.”
“You’ve cut off my son’s leg. How do I know he’s receiving proper treatment?”
“You’ll have to trust us on that.”
“What about the private meetings I have to attend? The one-on-ones? You can’t be privy to those exchanges.”
“I can and I will. You’ll have to think up a way to explain my presence.”
He sighs. “What’s the ankle band for?”
“It contains an explosive device. If you so much as hint that something’s amiss, I’ll detonate the cuff. When I do, it’ll take out everything in a twelve-foot radius.”
“What do you hope to achieve by doing this?”
“I intend to rescue Rachel.”
“But I’ve already explained. That’s impossible.”
“Plan A might be impossible. But I’ve got a Plan B.”
40.
“What’s Plan B?” Callie asks. We’re sitting in the parlor. Close enough to see Roger lying on the floor in the bedroom, far enough to keep from being heard.
“Plan B is a shot in the dark. A last-second buzzer beater.”
“Care to be more specific?”
“You remember the crack whore I put on the jet in Atlanta? The one I put in a padded cell?”
“Of course.”
“That’s Rachel’s mother.”
“What? I thought her mother was deceased.”
“Everyone thinks that. But I lived in Rachel’s attic for nearly two years, watching her every move. I went through all her papers. I listened as she talked in her sleep on the nights I drugged her. I came to realize Rachel’s mother was dead to her, but very much alive. If you can call it living. I spent months searching for her, and finally found her. I sat with her until she was coherent, spoke to her about her daughter, and put her in rehab, hoping to reunite them.”
“What happened?”
“She relapsed the same day. But I bought a house she could live in, until I decided to make another run at cleaning her up. I just haven’t gotten around to doing it till now.”
“If Rachel suspected her mother was alive, why didn’t you tell her you’d found her?”
“Rachel hates her mother for abandoning her. As far as she’s concerned, her mother’s dead. She’s listed both her parents as deceased on all paperwork she’s filled out as an adult. Not only that, but she’s told everyone who’s asked, that her mother killed herself with drugs. If I’d told Rachel I found her mother, but she’s back on smack, it wouldn’t have been much of a reunion.”
Callie and I are quiet a minute. Then she says, “I don’t understand how getting Rachel’s mother sober will help you save Rachel.”
“It won’t. Unless her blood contains the gene.”
Callie smiles. “Has she never given blood either?”
“Obviously not. Or if she did, it wasn’t picked up by the government’s computers.”
“Or maybe she wasn’t a match.”
“Also possible,” I say.
Callie frowns. “If Plan B fails, what’s left?”
“I’ll have to offer them something so politically valuable, they’ll be willing to walk away from a cure for the Spanish Flu.”
“What could possibly be that valuable to them?”
“I don’t know. What if I bring them Bin Laden?”
“Excuse me?”
“I know it sounds desperate…”
“Crazy, it what it sounds. Tell me you don’t know where he’s hiding!”
“Of course not. But how hard could it be?”
“Are you shitting me?”
“Look, I haven’t discarded Plan B yet.”
“How can I help you?” Callie says. “With Plan B, that is.”
“I’ll handle it from here. I’ll have Lou get you back to L.A. so you can pick up your car.”
“I don’t mind staying.”
“I know, and I appreciate it. But for now, all I can do is wait for Sherry’s blood tests to come back.”
“Doc Howard?”
“Yup.”
“And of course, his computers won’t be linked to a different branch of the government.”
“Darwin would never allow it.”
“Well, I hope it works. If it doesn’t, are you still going to kill Roger and his family?”
“What type of hit man would I be if I didn’t?”
41.
For the next three days I’m on Roger Asprin like his shadow. The only breaks I take are to check on Nadine, who has been released and is back in Rachel’s apartment. At night, in his hotel room, Roger and I talk. He’s a decent guy who loves his wife and kids. I feel terrible that his wife is cheating on him, but it’s not my place to tell him about it. On the other hand, Roger’s being very forthright with me, hoping, I assume, that if we’re friends, I’ll let his family go. On the third night, I ask, “Tell me how this harvesting works.”
Roger looks up from the notes he’d been studying and says, “Rachel’s eggs?”
I nod.
“It involves in vitro fertilization. Now that she’s given her first egg, they’ll administer a series of fertility drugs to stimulate her ovaries to produce a number of eggs at the same time. Removing the eggs from her ovaries will require minor surgery.”
“It’s unnatural.”
“Everything about this science is unnatural,” Roger says.
“Who fertilizes the eggs? A sperm donor? Who carries the babies to term? A surrogate?”
“You’re not going to like this.”
“Say it anyway.”
“Since Sam is Rachel’s husband, they’ll mix his sperm with her eggs in the hospital’s laboratory. If embryos develop, they’ll be grown in a lab dish until one or more are placed into the uterus of the surrogate.”