“Do you remember how excited you were when you first came to work at Nano? The enthusiasm with which you talked about your work was truly infectious. When you came over for dinner with that boy, you and I talked about the possibilities of what we are doing. And this is a whole new world of possibilities. A new frontier for medicine. It’s going to open up treatments and cures for thousands of maladies. And you know something else: it is going to save money. Nano is about to enter a new era. I’m done with respirocytes and athletes. We can move on to legitimate experimentation and development using animal models first and then humans. Can you imagine injecting a few cc’s of respirocytes into a drowning victim? Or what about people with debilitating COPD who can’t breathe enough to climb a single flight of stairs. They’ll be cured with respirocytes. The good we are going to do in the future will be a thousand times greater than any harm we did in the past. Ten thousand times more! We have no need for the kind of experimentation that was required to develop respirocytes fast enough for our Chinese backers. And to tell you the truth, on some level I now regret it.”
Pia glared at Berman.
“Bullshit. You’ll still do whatever it takes.”
“I see that you may not believe me, but it’s true.”
“You wanted to take shortcuts so you could save yourself.”
“What do you mean?”
“You told me about your mother, who’s living with Alzheimer’s. The literature you gave me focuses a lot on Alzheimer’s. You’re terrified you’re going to see signs of it in yourself and you’ll do anything to find a cure.”
“It’s not guaranteed that I’ll get the disease, but, yes, the chances are high. Both my parents struggled with it, and it was tragic to see my father go as he did. Now my mother is going downhill quickly. And I do have the gene associated with an increased risk, meaning I’m facing a double whammy. So, yes, I’m focused on Alzheimer’s research as well as infectious disease. Is that such a bad thing?”
“So you admit it. Of course it’s a bad thing, when you’re killing people in order to do it.”
“Ten people, perhaps, and they were criminals, convicted felons who were scheduled for execution. They would have died anyway if our program had not existed. And we didn’t intend them to die, that was not the goal. In reality all we affected was the date of death.”
Pia had promised herself that she would adopt a more conciliatory tone with Berman if she got another chance to talk to him. She had to give in, she saw that, or who knew what would happen to her? If she didn’t agree to Berman’s terms, there was no chance of her making it back to the United States. She even knew there was a deadline — the marathon at the athletics championships. But when it came to it, she couldn’t help herself. She found herself saying things she knew she shouldn’t. It was a bad habit, to say the least.
Pia suddenly felt physically exhausted but she wanted to keep walking. It had been almost a week since she had gone to see Berman at his house, as near as she could figure. It felt like ten years. Pia wondered: if she pretended to relent to Berman, would he take her home. Perhaps she could promise him the physical favors he so craved once they were back on American soil, but knowing him as she did, she doubted it very much. She knew she was powerless to do anything while she remained a prisoner here.
“How much longer are you going to keep me here like this?”
“How much longer are you going to resist the inevitable?”
“Perhaps forever.”
“I have said the consequences for you would be disastrous.”
“Can you at least get me a cell with a real bathroom? Or is that how your mother is, soiling herself in a diaper? You like the women in your life to be degraded, is that it, Berman?”
Pia steeled herself, ready for Berman to strike her. But he didn’t. Instead, he stopped walking. Pia looked at him and his face was thunder.
“You’re lucky you’re so pathetic yourself. I’m sure you are aware that I could have had my way with you if that had been my only intent. The fact of the matter is that I’m protecting you from our hosts, taking a risk, I might add, that their patience might run out. But that doesn’t mean I have to protect you forever. Think about your situation again. What are you going to do, climb that wall over there?”
Pia looked at the enclosure surrounding the garden. It was an impossibly huge fence, especially in her weakened condition. Even if Berman said to go climb, she wouldn’t be able to do it. Pia knew Berman was right. She was trapped with little hope of rescue. The only person who might guess that she had been abducted was Paul, and what could he do, especially since there was no way he could know for sure what had happened to her?
CHAPTER 60
“You like watching this, Burim?”
“Under different circumstances,” Burim said. He was trying to be a good guest, but he’d been sitting here for hours watching the TV. Now the men were watching what looked like billiards. Burim could barely watch, and after his third beer, he turned down their offer of more. He needed to keep a clear head.
Burim knew what good fortune he’d enjoyed to this point. He had arrived at Heathrow, tired and disoriented, and was met by an unmistakably Albanian man holding a sign that read BERTY’S FRIEND. The sign was as redundant as it was misspelled — this unshaven, raven-haired thug was obviously the right man. He introduced himself as Billy and said he was going to look after Burim. Billy told Burim that Berti had called to say that the car Pia was using had been found in Iowa, but the police still weren’t treating her disappearance as suspicious. Burim said there was no way Pia was in Iowa. She had been on that plane to London from Italy. He was convinced.
After that, the men drove in silence to this terraced house in a run-down but functioning neighborhood in North London. Burim was bursting with questions, but he followed his driver’s lead and kept quiet.
Billy let Burim into the narrow home with lurid wallpaper and the smell of damp, and introduced Harry, a slightly older and better-dressed man.
“Billy and Harry?” said Burim in their common tongue.
“I know,” said Harry, “but the less we know about each other, the better, yes?”
“Agreed.”
“We have a room upstairs. It’s small, but you won’t be here long. Take a shower if you want. The water pressure is low, and don’t use all the hot water. You’ll need some clothes.”
“I’m fine. What are we doing about locating my daughter?”
“Of course. That’s why we’re all here. We have the picture that was forwarded, and the description. She is a lovely young woman. Which makes our job easier. The picture has been distributed to all our friends and associates. Who have their own friends and associates. They know there is a reward available. There is a reward available, yes?”
Burim nodded. He knew that question would arise, and he would pay. He just didn’t know how much. Burim struck that thought and moved on. “What about the Chinese? The plane that arrived at Stansted that fit the description was listed as a Chinese diplomatic flight.”
“It was,” said Harry. “Which makes us think that the contact in America may have been mistaken. We’re checking other airports.”
“But I know there was a Chinese connection with the case my daughter was investigating.”
“That’s right. But the reality is, if it was a Chinese government flight, our job is much more difficult. There are certain countries that are very hard to take on, and China is one of them. The triads here in London are a real problem — very powerful and impossible to infiltrate. So we’re hoping to find the plane in another location.”