by Leo Mark
And then the men explained:
‘Lady, we aren´t pastors, but we´re here to talk about your son. We heard that he passed away and we´d like to offer our condolences,’ said one of the men.
‘We´re here because there is a very delicate matter we have to discuss,’ said the other man, talking quietly and surely, which gave the elderly couple confidence and they asked them in.
‘Sit down, please, gentlemen. I´ll get yer some coffee,’ said Maria with her country accent, typical of that part of Brazil.
‘Lady, that won´t be necessary, we won´t take up much of your time.’
‘Tell us then, please, how can we be of help?’
‘Lady, we´re Americans, we work for an American agency known as the CIA.’
The man showed them his badge.
‘Ah, I´ve heard of yer, you´re famous, always turning up in the movies. Yer must be very sad at what happened to those buildings, what a terrible thing, for God´s sake.’
‘Yes, lady, we´re all shocked. It was a great loss for humanity.’
‘But we´re here for another reason. My partner will explain.’
‘Lady, a very important American family is being hunted. Yesterday two members of the family were killed by very bad people. The only one of the family who survived is a boy who, as it happens, has the same name as your late son and almost the same age, just a year’s difference.’
‘But how do yer know about our son? He passed away yesterday and we ain´t even been to the registry office yet,’ said the woman with an astonished look.
‘Didn´t you call your family in Italy yesterday, to tell them? Well, we intercepted your call.’
Francisco leapt out of his chair.
‘You been snooping on us?’ the old man roared.
‘No, sir, please, calm down. All international calls are monitored for security purposes. We have software which identifies certain patterns, records them and sends them to us.’
‘Well, alright then, but just tell us what yer want. Can´t yer see we´re not up to coping with visitors? We´ve only just put our son in his grave.’
‘Right, then, as I was saying, two members of this American family were killed yesterday, and only their son survived. We need a place to hide the child. He needs a new name and a new family: if they find him he’ll be killed too. We´re here in the name of the American government to ask for your help.’
‘Yer want us to take on a child that isn´t ourn and that on top of that is being hunted? That´s not just illegal, it´s dangerous. Suppose those bad people find him here and kill us all!’ said the woman fearfully, but at the same time with compassion.
‘You won’t be taking a risk. We’ll watch you twenty-four hours a day and no one will find the boy here in Brazil. These bad people think the boy is dead too, that´s why he needs a new name and a new family.’
‘But what are we goin’ to tell our family and our friends and neighbors?’ asked the man.
‘As far as we know, only your family in Italy was told; your friends and neighbors don´t yet know your son is dead. All you have to do is not say anything more to anyone. Keep the boy hidden for a few years and no one will suspect. They´re not that different.’
‘Can we see the boy?’ asked the woman.
‘Of course! I’ll fetch him.’
The man brought David into the house. His face was all creased with the marks of the car’s upholstery and he was yawning like someone who hadn´t liked being woken like that.
When the couple saw David they felt happy and emotional.
‘Goodness me what a good-looking boy! He looks like an angel,’ said Maria, and began to weep as she remembered her own
dead son.
‘Just a moment, sir, I need to talk to me husband, I´ll be right back,’ said the old lady in a fearful tone of voice, as if she had something very important to say to him. The two of them went into the kitchen.
‘Husband, does yer remember once I told you I saw an angel?’
‘I remember, but that be some thirty years ago.’
‘And does yer remember what I told yer the angel said to me?’
Her husband’s face took on a look of amazement as he remembered how, thirty years before, his wife had woken in the middle of the night weeping bitterly, and had told him that she had seen an angel. The angel told her that one day men would come to her door and bring her a child, and that the child should stay with them and they should look after it well. Naturally none of the family believed what Maria said. Of course it had been a dream, real though it seemed to Maria. As time went by, she too became convinced that it was just a dream - after all, it was unimaginable.
‘So it weren’t a dream after all!’ exclaimed her husband, still shaken.
‘No, it weren´t. At the time I told yer it was too real to be a dream, but yer all talked me into believing it was a dream and I just kept quiet. It can´t be just coincidence. Let´s keep the boy.’
‘Alright, you´re the boss,’ said her husband, knowing that nothing he could do would make her change her mind.
They went back to the living room.
‘Alright, we’ll keep him, for sure,’ said Maria, taking David by the arm and giving him a gentle kiss on the cheek.
‘Thank you, lady, we knew we could count on you.’
‘Hello, David, how yer feeling?’ asked the woman, putting her hand under David’s chin.
David looked at one of the men, not understanding.
‘Lady, he doesn´t understand your language. But in a few months he’ll be talking fluently. Don´t worry about it.’
‘David, this is your new family. Look after them well and they’ll look after you,’ said the man in English, and said goodbye to David.
‘Goodbye, lady, here are our contact numbers. If there´s anything you need, just call. And as I said, please don’t tell anyone.’
The men went back to their car, started it up and disappeared up the dirt road.
David took over Davi´s room, his documents, his clothes and everything else of his. Only they couldn’t send him to the same school, since there they would realize it wasn´t Davi. The family had to put him into a different school in another town.
David became part of the family. Only the older sons and the grandchildren knew his story and they all promised to keep the secret. The boy always insisted on being called David, and his wish was respected.
Some days after David arrived at the farm, Francisco went into town to do some shopping and pay some bills at the bank. When he looked at his bank statement he saw that five million Reals had been put into his account. Francisco couldn´t believe it and went home and told his wife. He didn´t understand: could it be that the bank had made a mistake? His wife calmed him down and said it could be to do with the men who brought David. So the man told the bank he had inherited the money, paid off his many debts and never mentioned the matter to anyone again.
A year went by. David was speaking Portuguese fluently, like a native; it had taken him less than six months to become fluent. His facility for learning the language and his above-average intelligence astonished his adoptive parents and the whole family. David started helping his father in the day-to-day running of the farm, which was a coffee plantation. At last he was safe and happy.
CHAPTER 9
New York, 25th March 1992
It was a little past six in the morning and Thomas had spent the night in his laboratory. For nearly a year he had been trying, unsuccessfully, to clone Jesus Christ. He had tried more than three hundred times. He had used eggs collected from patients of his clinic, but without success. But a month earlier he had decided to try something different, remembering what his father had said about the angel’s instructions, which specified that the blood should remain in the family and that Jesus would be reborn through the blood of his family. Perhaps the proteins found in Sarah’s eggs were different from those in other women’s eggs. Bearing this in mind, some weeks earlier Thomas had asked his daughter to
come in for him to collect some eggs, and, unbelievable as it might seem in the eyes of science, Thomas had succeeded in fertilizing Sarah’s egg with the genetic material of Jesus at the first try. This was the breakthrough he needed. ‘And here I’ve been wasting all this time, because I didn´t think of this before,’ he had told himself. He was right. The cytoplasm of Sarah’s egg must have special properties that an ordinary egg didn’t have. And so the angel’s instructions that Jesus should be born of his blood and through his blood made sense now.
The fertilized egg was left to rest for a few days. Thomas fertilized more than fifty eggs, all at the first attempt. If something went wrong with the insemination, he would have other embryos. Amazingly, all the fifty eggs turned into embryos, so fifty clones of Jesus Christ could be born. The time had come for Sarah to be artificially inseminated. Thomas made his final preparations for the all-important event, the cloning of a being. If it worked out, it would be the world’s first cloning of a mammal, though in fact it would be only for him and his family, as the world wouldn’t be told about it for now. Thomas wondered if there were other clones of animals, perhaps even of human beings, loose in the world. However no one could know for sure about human clones, as the fact would involve very complex questions, both from an ethical point of view in the scientific milieu, and from the legal standpoint. Thomas probably wouldn´t be the first to risk it. He rested for some hours on the sofa in his living room before starting the insemination process. He wanted to be completely rested so that nothing should go wrong. He woke up with an aching back from the hard sofa, then went to the laboratory to wait for Sarah and finalize his preparations. He could hardly bear his own anxiety and looked at his watch about once every minute. ‘Sarah late as usual. She must be nervous, poor girl.’
Minutes later, when he was about to phone his daughter, he saw her at the end of the corridor making her way towards the laboratory. ‘Hi, Daddy, I’m here. Am I very late?’ asked Sarah, giving her father a hug and a kiss.
‘Punctual as ever,’ replied her father ironically. ‘You nervous?’
‘Just a little, but I trust you,’ answered Sarah calmly, putting her bag on the sofa.
‘Let’s get started then. Have a shower, use this antibacterial soap, then put this on,’ said Thomas, giving her a surgical gown and pointing to the door to the next room.
The doctor started the insemination procedure. Everything went smoothly. The procedure was very quick and Sarah was very happy, as she had always wanted to have a child. And now she would be the mother of Jesus, the Mary of the modern age. Sarah rested for a few days, as her father told her to. Then she began to feel changes in her body. ‘Let’s hope it isn’t just psychological,’ she thought to herself. She made an appointment to see a gynecologist, wanting to do everything by the book. She took a blood test and went back to the surgery to get the result. She opened the envelope and saw ‘HCG hormone > 150 mUI/mL.’ ‘I’m pregnant, it’s a miracle!’ Right away she called her father, from the clinic, and he answered on the first ring.
‘Daddy, I’m pregnant!’
CHAPTER 10
Washington DC, 1990
The black Jaguar stopped in front of 630 Pennsylvania Avenue. The driver and the passenger in front got out, both men wearing suits and ties and both well over six feet tall. One of them opened the back door of the Jaguar. A white-haired man of about eighty got out. While the men in suits looked carefully up and down the street, the old man took the side door into a cafeteria that was being renovated. One of the men got into the Jaguar and took off; the other followed the old man who was going down a wooden staircase. The old man came to a mahogany door. He knocked three times and a slit opened in the middle of the door to see who was knocking. The slit closed again and two seconds later the door opened. The old man and his bodyguard went through the door. They walked along a corridor for a few yards and began to go past rooms where naked women were packing cocaine in small phials. The old man reached the end of the corridor, where there was an open door.
‘What´s this shit you’re doing here? Packing cocaine right in the middle of the capital city? You really want to get locked up,’ grumbled the old man to a blond man who was sitting behind a large glass table, counting hundred-dollar notes.
‘There’s got to be some point in the pay-offs we make to the judges and the cops and anyway, we’ve got you to get us out of any trouble that comes along,’ retorted the blond man, who had a tattoo on his neck.
‘Where are the women of this whorehouse of yours, you give them a holiday?’
‘Of course not, we just moved to another place. You didn’t get the message? Our fault.’
‘Let’s get right down to business. What’ve you got for me that’s so important?’ asked the old man.
‘Mr. Jack, sit down will you? Would you like a glass of water or a cup of coffee, or something to snort?’ asked the man sarcastically.
‘Don’t joke with me, you worm, or tomorrow you’ll wake up with your mouth full of ants,’ shouted the old man.
‘Easy, Jack, I’m just kidding, no need to get all het up!’ replied the man, trying not to show he was afraid.
‘Out with it.’ The old man sat down on the sofa and took a cigar out of his jacket.
‘That Frenchman you told us to follow.’
‘I know. What about him? Did you find out anything?’
‘Yes. My people checked his phone bill and found he spent more than an hour on an international call, guess where to?’
‘Washington?’
‘Exactly!”
‘And you didn´t record the call?’
‘No, that was before we managed to bug his phone. Now it’s bugged he hasn’t made any suspicious calls.’
‘Incompetent fools! And whose phone did he call in Washington?’
‘The senator for New York.’
‘George Griffin? Are you sure?’ replied Jack, surprised.
‘Absolutely. It was his home number.’
‘But what possible connection could those two have?’ the old man thought aloud as he puffed out smoke from his cigar.
‘We don’t know yet, but you hired us to find out and we will soon know.’
‘I want to know everything about the senator. What time he gets up, what he eats, who he sleeps with apart from his wife. Bug his home phone and try to bug his office phone too.’
‘The office? That’s impossible. We’d be caught.’
‘That’s your problem. Use your secret service contacts, work it out. On second thoughts forget it, no need to bug the office. If they talked on his home phone they’re friends or something of the sort. If it was to do with work the senator would’ve used the phone in his office.’
‘You’re the boss.’
‘Send me a transcript of the important recordings. Always put the tapes in that post box I gave you. I’m off. I’ll be waiting for news.’
The old man left the room while his bodyguard, a sub-machine gun in his hand, looked the blond man up and down. The guard got a small radio out and told his colleague they were just leaving. The three got into the Jaguar and sped away. The old man, whose name wasn’t Jack, began to wonder what connection the Frenchman could have with the most popular senator in the US, his personal friend, thoughtfully running his hands through his white hair and lighting another Cuban cigar.
CHAPTER 11
Washington DC, 22nd February 1991
Senator George Griffin got home at nine p.m. His wife hadn’t arrived yet, and he thought she might be at the club gossiping with her friends, or perhaps at the house of one of them. Griffin went into the living room with his bodyguard, John, and saw that the answering machine was flashing. There were two messages. George pressed Play:
New message, recorded at 7.46 p.m.
‘Dad, you´ve no idea what I´ve found out! I analyzed the blood in the cylinder and I found something sensational. It doesn´t belong to any species known on this planet. As a matter of fact the DNA of this blood has 48 chromo
somes, while human blood has 46. Isn´t it fantastic? By the way, I´ve decided to try and create the clone. Call me as soon as you get this message. Bye.’ The senator gave a start. He felt a mixture of delight at the news and alarm and remorse, for not having told Thomas not to speak of the matter over the phone. ‘Damn it,’ thought the senator, ‘my son’s very naïve.’ George pressed the button to delete the message.
New message, recorded at 8.59 p.m.
‘Hi George, this is Arnold. I’m calling to invite you for our game of golf at the club. We’ve got a lot of stuff to catch up with. Call me and we’ll fix it.’
George was surprised at his old friend’s call. It was months since they had spoken and here he was calling out of the blue for a game of golf. His billionaire friend with the white hair must be over eighty now, he would hardly be up to playing golf with George. Arnold owned banks in the US and Europe and was one of the twenty richest men in the world, according to Forbes magazine. George and Arnold were university friends; they had studied and graduated together at the Harvard Economics faculty many years before. They hadn’t seen each other for years, because both of them had very busy lives, until two years before when Arnold had resurfaced, inviting George and his wife for dinner at his house.
George picked up the phone and called his son.
‘Hallo, son.’
‘Hi, Dad, get my message?’
‘I did. Son, please don’t phone me and above all don’t leave messages about these things. We must always discuss them face to face.’
‘Ah, I understand. Sorry.’
‘We’ll talk later. Keep going on the project, I’ll be there Saturday and we’ll discuss it.’
‘OK, see you Saturday then.’
George had never spoken to Thomas so seriously and so shortly, but it was the only way he would understand the message without more explanation.
‘John, come here!’ called George to his bodyguard and butler John.
‘Yes, sir.’
‘John, I need you to check the phone lines here at home to make sure they’re not bugged. Call those people you used before.’
