‘The “lost souls” of the Hacienda Yunque,’ said MacLean.
‘How many guards?’ asked Leavey.
‘Fifteen in all, although they are not just guards; they have other duties. They are split into three groups of five. One group works in the boiler house, one does the maintenance work in the Hacienda and the third group works here.’
‘Any other people?’ asked MacLean.
‘Dr Von Jonek and two other scientists,’ said Carla.
‘And Hartmut,’ added Fernanda, exchanging glances with Carla.
‘Hartmut?’ asked Leavey.
Carla grimaced and said, ‘Dr Von Jonek keeps a strange man with him. He is not normal… not right.’
Leavey asked where Von Jonek and the others worked.
‘Somewhere inside the rock,’ replied Carla. ‘But none of the girls ever get to go there.’
Carla and Fernanda were both on duty in the nursery at seven thirty in the morning so it was agreed that Leavey and MacLean would lie low in their chalet. They would spend the day resting and regaining their strength, waiting for nightfall when they would attempt to find Von Jonek’s laboratory and the Cytogerm they had come for. In the event, neither of them slept much but the rest did them good and by mid-afternoon they felt ready for the final part of their mission.
‘When we get the stuff we’ll still have a problem,’ said Leavey.
‘You mean, how do we get out of here?’ replied MacLean.
Leavey nodded.
When they had entered the tunnel through the fake sterilizer door they had found a button to close the door behind them but both had noticed that there was no obvious way of opening the door from the inside. ‘There must be a way,’ said MacLean. ‘I don’t fancy the climb.’ He looked up at the cliffs.
‘Not easy,’ conceded Leavey.
‘Even if we made it to the top, we can’t get down the other side because of the overhang.’
‘Then we’ll have to ask someone the way out,’ said Leavey with characteristic understatement.
‘And we’ll have to do it tonight,’ said MacLean. ‘They’re going to start taking the absence of one of their guards seriously pretty soon.’
Leavey agreed. They had been counting on a ‘honeymoon’ period when, although the guard was seen to be missing, innocent explanations would prevail for a while. This, they hoped, would be especially true in the case of the Hacienda Yunque, which to all intents and purposes was impregnable. The man had been hopelessly drunk when he ‘disappeared’ so it would be assumed for a while that he had not appeared for duty because of this. When a whole day had passed however, without anyone seeing him, they would start searching for him in earnest.
When the girls returned just after dark MacLean told them of the plan and asked them to prepare themselves to leave at a moment’s notice. They were not however, to have bags packed and waiting by the door because of any search that might be mounted for the missing guard. As a precaution, the four of them searched the chalet for anything that might have belonged to him, no matter how small. They found nothing.
The two men slipped out of the chalet into the darkness and crossed the open ground quickly. They made it to the shelter of the rocks and settled down to wait. The night, a complete contrast to the previous evening, was warm and balmy, pleasant to be out in but with the disadvantage of a clear, starry sky above them and the prospect of moonlight to contend with when the moon cleared the rim of the cliffs.
When they were satisfied that most of the to-ing and fro-ing was over for the day they moved nearer the tunnel that led to the Hacienda. They had already decided that Von Jonek’s laboratories must lie down the shaft in the tunnel that they had not explored. They crept up to the entrance, hugging the contours of the rock to avoid silhouetting themselves, and had a look. Everything seemed quiet so they sprinted quickly and quietly up to where the tunnel split into three. Once more the sound of voices sent them scurrying for cover in the dark, disused shaft.
From the shadows they watched five men pass by. They were arguing amongst themselves and as the sound of their voices faded Leavey said that they were probably the relief guards being summoned to assist in a search for the missing man. The two men crossed the junction and moved into new territory. There was a light coming from under the first door they came across and MacLean put his ear to it. He heard muted voices from within and signalled to Leavey that they move on. They came to another junction in the tunnel and found another door. On it in large red letters was the word, PRIVADO.
‘Do you think that applies to us?’ whispered Leavey.
MacLean smiled despite the feelings in his stomach. He watched their backs, gun raised with the barrel resting against his cheek, while Leavey dealt with the lock and let them inside. They were in a small laboratory equipped with basic glassware and general lab items but nothing to excite MacLean. He looked through drawers and cupboards in a methodical, clockwise search but still found nothing interesting. Finally, he opened a large refrigerator, letting yellow light spill out into the room. He hoped to find supplies of Cytogerm but it contained nothing but racks of small plastic tubes. He asked for Leavey’s torch and removed one of the racks to examine it more closely.
Each tube had a nametag on it. MacLean repeated the names under his breath as he went through the rack, removing each in turn. Halfway through, the names started to sound familiar. He went back to the beginning and filled in the blanks. Karman, Nobel prize winner in physics… Normark… prize winner in medicine… Ericson the finest mathematician of his generation. The list began to sound like a roll call of outstanding achievement in the twentieth century.
‘Mean anything?’ asked Leavey.
‘Quite a lot,’ replied MacLean thoughtfully.
‘Do you know what’s in the tubes?’ asked Leavey.
‘Sperm samples,’ said MacLean.
‘What for?’
‘I’m not sure,’ said MacLean. ‘It’s not unusual for great men to be asked to provide sperm samples for preservation in deep freeze, a sort of genetic bank for future generations. But I can’t see where Von Jonek fits in to all this.’
‘Artificial insemination?’ suggested Leavey.
‘The donors would never allow it,’ said MacLean.
‘If Von Jonek’s involved I don’t see that they would have had much say in the matter,’ said Leavey and MacLean had to agree.
‘I think that must be it,’ said Leavey. ‘They are using the samples to inseminate women, maybe at the clinic?’
MacLean looked unconvinced. He said, ‘That kind of operation wouldn’t take a budget of 18 million dollars and it wouldn’t explain the secret nursery.’
Leavey conceded.
MacLean opened more doors and found an incubator room being kept at 37 degrees centigrade, human body temperature. Inside there was a rotating drum full of test tubes containing a red-coloured fluid.
‘Anything?’ asked Leavey.
‘It’s some kind of cell culture system,’ said MacLean, closing the door again and opening up the door next to it. This proved to be another fridge. He almost went weak at the knees when he saw a light blue box lying on the middle shelf. It was labelled, CYTOGERM. MacLean picked it up and held it to his chest for a moment before raising it up to his lips. Carrie would have her new face.’
‘Mission accomplished,’ said Leavey.
MacLean nodded but was too emotional to say anything. Leavey asked, ‘Is there enough?’
MacLean nodded again, opening the box and stuffing the glass vials into his pockets.
Almost absent-mindedly, Leavey completed the search of the lab by opening the final door. He expected to find a cupboard; instead he found a cathedral.