"Well, how the hell did they learn about it?" Spencer roared.
"We'll find out," Paul said. "Trust me!"
"How can you be so confident?" Spencer demanded. "Kurt Hermann and his bozos have been grilling those women down in the gatehouse since three A.M., and you admitted yourself five minutes ago, they've learned nothing."
"I beg to differ," Sheila said. "I've been doing the debriefing so far, not Kurt, and it's not true we've learned nothing."
"You've been talking with the women?" Spencer questioned.
"Absolutely," Sheila said. "It was under my specific orders that I be paged the moment they were apprehended. As we're trying to tell you, we're just as concerned as you about uncovering their methods. And we are making progress. For instance, we've learned that it was your access card which got them into both the server room and the egg room."
"Oh, I see," Spencer said, glaring back at his two supposed subordinates. "So I'm to blame for this debacle."
"Allotting blame is not our intent in the slightest," Paul said.
"That's not a lot of information after six hours," Spencer said.
"They are extremely intelligent women," Sheila explained. "They recognize that the information they have is important. They are not pushovers by any stretch of the imagination, but I'm being patient."
"We're using the good cop, bad cop routine," Paul explained.
"Exactly," Sheila said. "Obviously, I'm the good cop. While we're having our meeting, Kurt is having his first go at talking with them. He's the bad cop. As soon as we finish here, I'll go back down and intervene. I'm confident we'll have all we need to know by noon at the latest."
"Once we have the information," Paul said, "we'll make the appropriate operational changes. We've already started in regard to computer security. From now on, access to the server room will be limited to Randy Porter alone."
"We should look at this whole unfortunate affair as a learning experience," Sheila said.
"Precisely!" Paul chimed in. "And we should look at it as a further stimulus for us to move the entire clinic, research labs and all, offshore like we discussed last evening. By the way, Spencer: What did you think of the plans I gave you last evening for the Bahamian Center?"
"The plans looked good," Spencer admitted reluctantly.
'And your response in general to the idea of moving offshore?" Paul asked.
"I must admit I like it," Spencer said. "I like the idea of having even less regulation than we've had to deal with here, even if that hasn't been that much of a bother."
Spencer nodded. "Let's get back to the women. What's to happen them after their debriefing?"
"I don't know,' Paul answered.
"What do you mean you don't know?" Spencer demanded, feeling his ire rise again.
"I don't want to know," Paul said. "I leave that kind of problem up to Kurt Hermann. That's what we pay him for."
"You leave the problem to Kurt Hermann and yet retain the ovaries," Spencer sneered. "Is that what you are telling me?"
"Harvesting the ovaries was a mistake we made in the past," Sheila interjected. "There's no doubt we shouldn't have done it. We realize it now, and it will not be repeated. As an explanation, it happened back when we were struggling with a critical egg shortage."
"A shortage which we no longer have," Paul added. "With the Nicaraguan connection plus the progress we've made with our oogonia culture technique, we now have at our disposal an almost unlimited egg supply. Hell, we can probably supply the cloning needs for the whole country."
"Are you two trying to suggest to me that you are not disturbed by this episode?" Spencer asked.
Paul and Sheila exchanged glances.
"We certainly take it as a serious event," Sheila said. "It's a learning experience as we said. But it has been contained just like the episode involving the anesthetic catastrophe. Even if this episode with these two meddling women had not ended so auspiciously, we would have been able to cope."
"Listen, Spencer," Paul said. He leaned forward and rubbed his hands together, and then held them up in a conciliatory gesture.
"Like I said last night during our discussion, researchwise we are sitting on a virtual gold mine. With what we are learning from our cloning work in terms of generating stem cells, we will be the biotech leaders of the twenty-first century. Cloning and stem cells are going to revolutionize medicine, and we're going to be at the forefront."
"You make it sound so rosy," Spencer said.
"That's exactly the same adjective I use to describe it to myself," Paul said. "It is rosy! Very rosy!"
The latch on Spencer's office door clicked loudly. Spencer, Paul, and Sheila turned to look. All were taken aback by the interruption. The secretary's face appeared around the door.
"What is it, Gladys?" Spencer demanded. "I said we were not to be disturbed."
"It's Mr. Hermann," the secretary said meekly. "He needs to speak to Dr. Saunders. He said it was an emergency."
Paul stood up. A questioning expression clouded his face. He excused himself and followed the distraught secretary out of the room. One look at Kurt caused a meltdown of all the nonchalance and composure Paul had been studiously maintaining.
"We've got a major problem," Kurt sputtered.
"Why are you out of breath?"
"I've run all the way up from the gatehouse."
Paul snapped open the door to his office and motioned Kurt inside. Paul closed the door behind them. "Well?"
"There's a United States attorney down at the gatehouse," Kurt blurted, running his words together.
"Slow down!" Paul ordered. "What's he doing here?"
"He's got a search warrant, and he and some federal marshals are going through the gatehouse. Plus they're demanding entrance onto the grounds."
"How the hell did he get a search warrant?" Paul was stunned.
"I asked. Apparently it was due to a complaint by a doctor by the name of Carlton Williams."
"Never heard of him."
"His father is some Texan big shot with connections to the Justice Department. The problem is, this Carlton Williams knows the women were here last night and didn't return home."
"Shit!” Paul snapped. "Where are the women now?"
"They're still in the gatehouse basement."
"Has the U.S. Attorney found them?"
"I don't know. I ran up here as soon as I was able to put them off for five minutes. They're threatening to bring in a SWAT team if we don't cooperate."
"Threatening is good," Paul said, regaining some composure. "At least they didn't show up with a SWAT team. That gives us a good half hour, minimum. Let's activate a code red. You get to Randy Porter. Have him put everything onto Zip discs and then erase all the hard drives. Then get yourself and Randy to the hangar and rev up the chopper. I'll get Dr. Wingate and Dr. Donaldson down there after we shred paper files here in the office and have the egg room destroyed. Okay?"
"Roger!" Kurt said. He saluted before dashing out of the office and running full tilt down the corridor toward the fire door. Paul watched him until he disappeared. Paul then took a couple of breaths to bolster his gaining equanimity. When he felt he'd pulled himself adequately together, he returned to Spencer's office. Spencer and Sheila looked at him expectantly the moment he appeared.
"Well," Paul said. "It appears that we're going offshore sooner than we expected…"
