“I remember the bioprospectors we met a while back in the Amazon rain forest.”
Gamay nodded.
“Same concept, but there’s a growing consensus that the ocean’s potential for pharmaceuticals and medicines dwarfs that of the rain forest. The organisms that grow in the ocean are far more dynamic, biologically speaking, than anything on land.”
Furrowing his brow, Paul said, “If Kurt is interested in the marine center, why not go through Kane?”
“I asked him the same question. He said not to expect help from Kane. That we’re on our own and that-”
“He’ll explain later,” Paul finished the sentence.
Gamay feigned a look of astonishment.
“You’re positively psychic at times.”
He put his index finger to his temple.
“My mystic powers are telling me that you are about to offer me the rest of your strawberry frappe.”
Gamay pushed the glass across the table.
“How do you think we should approach this thing with Kane out of the picture?”
“You could try using your NUMA bona fides to leverage a tour of the place.”
“I thought of that. The NUMA connection might get me in the front door, but I don’t know if I’d get the kind of access that would do us any good.”
Paul nodded in agreement.
“You’d get the VIP treatment, a quick tour by a PR flack, a ham sandwich, and a fond good-bye. Kurt apparently wants us to take a look behind the scenes.”
“That was my impression. I need an edge, and I think I know where I can find one.”
“While you work on that edge, I’ll see if I can get you on a flight to Florida.”
Paul stopped by his office to make travel arrangements. Gamay went to the boat dock to tell her dive crew that she was leaving Scripps. She hauled her scuba gear to the dormitory room that had been provided for their stay. She called an ocean chemist colleague at the Scripps Center for Marine Biotechnology and Biomedicine. In her usual Gamay fashion, she got right to the point.
“I’m trying to wrangle an overnight stay at Bonefish Key. I remember you saying that your center has worked with them on oceanborne treatments for asthma and arthritis.”
“That’s right,” said Stu Simpson, an ocean biologist. “Most of the institutions working on this stuff share information. Bonefish Key is pretty tight, though. Have you contacted the director, Dr. Kane?”
“He’s a hard guy to track down.”
“Out in the field a lot, I’ve heard, and the place is being run by a Dr. Mayhew. I’ve met him at conferences. Not exactly Mr. Personality, but I may be able to help. Kane used to be with the Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute, in Fort Pierce, Florida, before he got some money and set up the lab at Bonefish Key. I’ve got a friend at Harbor Branch who’s a pal of Mayhew’s. He owes me. I’ll see if I can call in that marker for you.”
While Gamay waited for Simpson to call back, she turned her laptop on and called up all the information she could find on Bonefish Key. She had been reading for only a few minutes when Dr. Mayhew called. Gamay explained her interest in Bonefish Key, said she was at Scripps but would be in Florida visiting friends and wondered if she could visit the lab. He said he appreciated the interest of someone from NUMA in the marine center’s work, but their visitor schedule was full up.
“That’s too bad,” Gamay said. “NUMA had no problem finding accommodations for your director on the B3 project. Why don’t you talk to Dr. Kane? I’m sure he would love to reciprocate NUMA’s hospitality if you asked him.”
“That’s not possible.” Pause. “We have a guest room free, but only for tomorrow night. Too bad you’re on the other side of the country.”
Gamay saw the opening and struck with the speed of a cobra.
“I’ll be there tomorrow,” she said.
“I wouldn’t want you to come all this way for just one night.”
“No problem, I can revise my schedule. So let’s make it two nights, then. How do I get out to the key?”
There was a stunned silence at the other end of the line. “When you get to Fort Myers, call a man named Dooley Greene. He works for the center and has a boat.”
Mayhew almost hung up without giving her Greene’s phone number. Cute, she thought as she jotted down the information. When Paul returned a few minutes later, she already was packing her duffel bag.
“Are you in?” he asked.
“Just barely.”
She told him how she arm-twisted Mayhew.
“Slick,” Paul said. “You’d make a deadly telemarketer. You’re in luck, by the way. The travel bureau at NUMA has booked you on an early-morning flight to Fort Myers. I’ll come out after I wrap up my seminar.”
They spent the rest of the afternoon walking and riding around the campus, visiting spots from their grad-student days. After a late dinner, Gamay finished packing her bag, and they got to bed early. The next morning, Paul drove Gamay to the airport, gave her a good-bye kiss, and said he would see her in a couple of days.
THE PLANE LIFTED OFF the ground and leveled out at thirty-five thousand feet. Gamay settled back in her seat and read about Bonefish Key on her laptop. It was a narrow strip of land near Pine Island on the Gulf of Mexico. Indians inhabited the island before the Spaniards turned it into a combination fort and trading post. Later, it became a fishing center named after the bonefish that abounded in nearby waters.
Around 1900, an enterprising New Yorker built a hotel, but it was wrecked in a hurricane. The island then passed through a series of owners. After another hurricane stymied an attempt to operate an inn, the owner sold Bonefish Key to a nonprofit foundation and it became a center for the study of marine organisms with pharmaceutical potential.
The flight was smooth, and Gamay used some of the time to work on a report about her work at Scripps. When the plane landed at Fort Myers Airport late in the afternoon, the efficient NUMA travel bureau had arranged for a van to deliver her to the Pine Island ferry landing.
A twin-hulled powerboat was tied up at the dock. The grizzled man at the wheel had a nut-brown tan that only partly hid the creases in his genial face.
“I guess you’re going out to Bonefish,” he said. “I’m Dooley Greene. I make runs for the marine center, which kinda makes me the official greeter.”
Gamay tossed her duffel bag in the double-hull and stepped on board with the sureness of someone who spent a lot of time on boats.
“I’m Dr. Morgan-Trout,” she said, shaking his hand with a grip that surprised Dooley with its firmness. “Please call me Gamay.”
“Thanks, Dr. Gamay,” he said, unable to avoid the honorific. Despite her informality, her almost-regal self-confidence could be intimidating. Emboldened by her friendliness, he added, “Pretty name. Unusual too.”
“My father was a wine nut. He named me after his favorite grape.”
“My father’s favorite booze was cheap gin,” Dooley said. “Guess I should be grateful he didn’t name me Juniper.”
Dooley uncleated the line and pushed the boat away from the dock. As they headed out into the bay, he seemed in no hurry.
“How long have you worked for the center?” Gamay asked.
“I was the dockmaster for the Bonefish Key Inn back when every fisherman and boater on the waterway used to hang out at the bar. After the hotel got beat up by Hurricane Charlie, the owner went bankrupt. When the marine center bought the property, they fixed up the inn. Dr. Kane asked me to run the water taxi and carry supplies. I used to be pretty busy running staff people back and forth, but that’s all quieted down some.”
“Aside from staff, do you bring many visitors out here?”
“Nope. The folks at the lab aren’t the friendliest people . . . Scientists.” He shook his head. Then, realizing his faux pas, he added, “Oh, hell, you a scientist?”