“No surprise,” Flynn said. Dicken glanced between them both. What he saw chilled him. The glibness had completely evaporated. They knew their careers were on the line.
“The preparations have been obvious, but Jurie only told us yesterday,” Turner said. Their statements piled together.
“She’s a very unhappy girl,” Flynn said.
“I’m not sure we should even have her here,” Turner said.
“She’s pregnant,” Flynn said.
“A rape, we’re told. Her foster father,” Turner said.
“Oh, God, I didn’t know it was rape,” Flynn said, and pressed her knuckles to her cheek. “She’s only fourteen.”
“They brought her from a school in Arizona,” Flynn said. “Jurie calls it our school. That’s where we’ve been getting most of our specimens.”
“She’s pregnant?” Dicken asked, dumbfounded, and then wondered if he had blown his cover.
“That’s not generally known even in the clinic,” Turner said. “I’d appreciate some discretion.”
Dicken let his astonishment come forward. “That’s major.” His voice cracked. “But she’s 52 xx. What about polyploidy?”
“I only know what I see,” Turner said grimly. “She’s pregnant by her foster father.”
“That’s absolutely huge,” Dicken said.
“She arrived at the school a month ago,” Turner said. “We discovered her pregnancy when we processed a set of her blood tests. Jurie almost had a heart attack when he got the results from the lab. He seemed elated. He got her transferred to Pathogenics last week without telling the rest of us.”
“I was so mad,” Flynn said. “I could have clobbered him.”
“What else could we do? The school couldn’t take care of her, and it’s for damn sure no hospital would touch her.”
Dicken held up his hand. “Who’s working the clinic?” he asked.
“Maggie, Tommy Wrigley—you met Tommy at the party, and Thomas Powers. Some people brought in from California; we don’t know them. And, of course, Jurie, on the research side. But he’s never even visited the girl.”
“What’s her condition?”
“She’s about three months along. Not doing too well. We think she may have self-induced Shiver,” Flynn said.
“That is not confirmed,” Turner said angrily. “She’s acting as if she has the flu, and that’s all it may be. But we’re being extra cautious. And this information goes nowhere… don’t even tell anyone else at Pathogenics.”
“But Dr. Dicken would know if it’s Shiver, wouldn’t he?” Flynn said defensively. “Isn’t that why Jurie brought you here?”
“Let’s look at the girl,” Dicken said.
“Her name is Fremont, Helen Fremont,” Flynn said. “She’s originally from Nevada. Las Vegas, I think.”
“Reno,” Turner corrected. Then, his face collapsing in utter misery, his shoulders slumping, he added, “I don’t think I can take this much longer. I really don’t.”
34
BALTIMORE-WASHINGTON
Kaye and Marge Cross sat in the back of the taxi in silence. Kaye looked at the passive neck of the driver below his turban, caught a glimpse of his small grin in the rearview mirror. He was whistling to himself, happy. For him, having a SHEVA granddaughter was no great burden, obviously.
Kaye did not know much about conditions for SHEVA children in Pakistan. Generally, traditional cultures—Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists—had been more accepting of the new children. That was both surprising and humbling.
Cross drummed her fingers on her knee and looked out the window at the highway, passing cars. A long semi rolled past with TRANS-NATIONAL BIRMINGHAM PORK emblazoned in huge red letters on the sides of its two trailers.
“Spent lots of money on that one,” Cross murmured.
Kaye assumed she was referring to pig tissue transplants. “Where are we going, Marge?” she asked.
“Just driving,” Cross said. Her chin bounced up and down, and Kaye could not be sure whether she was nodding or just moving her jaw in time to the truck ruts in the roadway.
“That address is in a residential neighborhood. I know Baltimore and Maryland pretty well,” Kaye said. “I assume you aren’t kidnapping me.”
Cross gave her a weak smile. “Hell, you’re paying,” she said. “There’s some people I think you’ll want to meet.”
“All right,” Kaye said.
“Lars came down pretty hard on Robert.”
“Robert’s a sanctimonious prick.”
Cross shrugged. “Nevertheless, I’m not going to take Lars’s advice.”
“I didn’t think you would,” Kaye said. She hated to lose her labs and her researchers, even now. Doing science was her last comfort, her lab the last place she could take refuge and lose herself in work.
“I’m letting you go,” Cross said.
To her surprise, the blow did not feel so heavy after all. It was Kaye’s turn to nod in time to the cab’s rubbery suspension.
“Your work with me is over,” Cross said.
“Fine,” Kaye said tightly.
“Isn’t it?” Cross asked.
“Of course,” Kaye said, her heart thumping. What I have been putting off doing. What I cannot do alone.
“What more would you do at Americol?”
“Pure research on hormonal activation of retroviral elements in humans,” Kaye said, still grasping at the past. “Focus on stress-related signaling systems. Transfer of transcription factors and regulating genes by ERV to somatic cells. Study the viruses as common genetic transport and regulatory systems for the body. Prove that the all-disease model is wrong.”
“It’s a good area,” Cross said. “A little too wild for Americol, but I can make some calls and get you a position elsewhere. Frankly, I don’t think you’re going to have time.”
Kaye lifted her eyebrows and thinned her lips. “If I’m no longer employed by you, how can you know how much time I’ll have?”
Cross smiled, but the smile vanished quickly and she frowned out the window. “Robert picked the wrong hammer to hit you with,” she said. “Or at least he did it in front of the wrong woman.”
“How’s that?”
“Twenty-three years ago come August, I was beginning to drum up venture capital for my first company. I was packing my schedule with meetings and heavy-duty lunches.” Her expression turned wistful, as if she were recalling an old, wonderful romance. “God dropped in. Bad timing, to say the least. He hit me so hard I had to drive to the Hamptons and hide out in a hotel room for a week. Basically I swooned.”
She was avoiding direct eye contact, like a little girl confessing. Kaye leaned forward to see her face more clearly. Kaye had never seen Cross look so vulnerable.
“I can’t tell you how scared I was that He was a sign of madness, epilepsy, or worse.”
“You thought it was a he?”
Cross nodded. “Doesn’t make sense for a couple of strong women, does it? It bothered me a lot, then. But no matter how bothered I was, how scared I was, I never thought about visiting a radiology center. That was brilliant, Kaye. Not cheap, but brilliant.”
Kaye glanced at the driver’s face in the rearview mirror. He was obviously trying to ignore the words being spoken in the backseat, trying to give them privacy—and not succeeding.