The God Project

by John Saul

  It was Steve who finally broke the silence. “I’m sorry, honey.”

  Her reverie disturbed, Sally glanced over at him. “Did you say something?”

  “I was trying to apologize,” Steve said. “I thought-well, you know what I thought But the whole thing seemed so crazy—” He fell silent, regretting his choice of words.

  “It is crazy.” The calmness in her voice surprised Sally as much as it did Steve; by rights she should be screaming, or sobbing, or pounding her fists on something. Anything but this eerie sense of calm that had come over her. But she knew the calmness was only a temporary reaction, a protective device she had wrapped herself in, a screen to ward off for a little while the despair she knew was bound to overtake her when she came to grips with reality.

  For reality was contained in the term that had flashed into her mind when Mark Malone had said the words “genetically altered.”

  Reality was that Jason was not what she had always thought he was. He was something else, something she was unfamiliar with.

  A mutant.

  Not an eight-year-old boy, not the innocent and perfect product of the mating between herself and her husband.

  A mutant.

  Something different, something unfamiliar, something unknown.

  What was he?

  Suddenly all the words she had heard over the past few years held new and sinister meaning for her.

  Recombinant DNA.

  She barely knew what DNA was.

  Genetic engineering.

  She knew about that. That was the new science, the science that was going to offer glorious solutions to age-old problems.

  But what else was it going to do? Was it going to create a glorious new world, or was it going to create a world full of altered beings, mutants, designed for—for what?

  She didn’t know. And perhaps she never would. Perhaps whatever had been done to Jason had been done for no specific reason at all. Perhaps he was nothing more than an experiment.

  The thought chilled her, and she turned around, gazing at her son, trying to fathom how he might have been changed. She reached back to caress Jason’s cheek, but he drew back from her touch, his eyes large and worried.

  “Why do I have to stay at Grandma’s?” he wanted to know.

  “It’s only for a little while, sweetheart,” Sally managed to tell him through the constriction that had formed in her throat “Just a few hours.”

  “Why couldn’t I stay with Mrs. Corliss, so I could be there when Randy gets back?”

  Randy.

  Jason and Randy.

  Sally tried to remember how long they had been friends, and how long it had been since Jason had had other friends.

  Thoughts flickered through her mind, disconnected thoughts that suddenly fit together.

  Mutants.

  Was that why Jason and Randy had become friends? Did they know about themselves and each other? Had they recognized each other long ago, sensing that the two of them, different from others, were not different from each other?

  Sally sank back into her seat without having answered Jason’s question.

  He didn’t look any different He looked as he’d always looked: a miniature version of his father, with the same deep blue eyes and unruly blond hair, the same energy and enthusiasm for everything, the same stubbornness.

  But he was not his father’s child, nor was he his mother’s child.

  Dear God, what had they done to her child? What had they done to her? She reached out and took Steve’s hand in her own.

  “Steve?”

  He glanced over at her, and squeezed her hand.

  “Take care of us, Steve,” she said. “Take care of all of us.”

  “I will, darling,” he promised. But even as he made the promise, Steve Montgomery wondered whether he could keep it. There were so many questions in his mind, and so few answers.

  He still wasn’t altogether sure that there was any kind of conspiracy. Wiseman, he was sure, was right. Whatever had gone wrong with the children in Group Twenty-one had started with their parents.

  It wasn’t a conspiracy. It was simply a genetic weakness passed on to the next generation.

  It was, actually, his fault.

  His fault, and Sally’s.

  CHILD, in all likelihood, was doing nothing more than watching the children, trying to isolate the defect and find a means to correct it.

  So there was really nothing for him to “take care of.” All he had to do was learn to live with the fact that he’d failed his children.

  Or, anyway, he’d failed Julie.

  But had he failed Jason? After all, Jason had never been sick a day in his life. Maybe with Jason, he hadn’t failed at all. Maybe Jason, through some strange combination of his genes—and Sally’s—was truly the perfect child they had always thought he was.

  Maybe everything was going to be all right after all.

  By the time they readied Phyllis Paine’s house, he was feeling much better about everything.

  Jason was fine. Jason was his son, and Jason was alive, and Jason was perfect. And in a few hours, working with Dr. Malone and the computer, Sally would find out that nothing was wrong, and they, like the Corlisses, could get back to the reality of being a family.

  Steve relaxed, sure the end of the nightmare was near.

  One by one, Arthur Wiseman retrieved the medical histories of the women who had given birth to the children in Group Twenty-one, sure that somewhere in those records his vindication would be found. The pattern emerged very quickly, both to him and to Mark Malone.

  It wasn’t just Sally Montgomery, and Lucy Corliss, and Jan Ransom.

  It was all of them.

  Forty-six women, none of whom had wanted children.

  Forty-six women, all of whom he had considered to be poor risks for the pill.

  Forty-six women, for whom an intrauterine device had been the indicated method of birth control.

  Not an unusual number over the space of more than ten years. Indeed, Arthur Wiseman had inserted far more than forty-six IUDs over those years.

  But for these forty-six, there was something else. All of them, at one time or another, had complained of one symptom or another—often a history of allergic reactions—which had suggested that their bodies might reject the intrusion of such an object.

  And so he had applied, in the uterus of each of these women, and perhaps a hundred others, bicalcioglythemine.

  “But what is it?” Mark Malone asked.

  “BCG? It’s a salve that helps reduce the likelihood of the uterus rejecting the IUD.

  “I’ve never even heard of it,” Malone said. “Who makes it?”

  “PharMax.”

  Malone groaned, and Wiseman looked at him curiously. “What’s wrong? I’ve been using it for ten years.”

  “Which is just about how long we’ve had this problem, even though we didn’t know about it.”

  “I don’t see what the connection could be—”

  “TharMax is the source of CHILD’S funds. In fact, PharMax set CHILD up in the first place. And why haven’t I ever heard of this—what do you call it?”

  “BCG. And there’s a simple reason why you’ve never heard of it—you’re not an OB-GYN.”

  “But I keep up with the literature, and I talk to the reps. And Bob Pender’s never mentioned anything about BCG to me.”

  Wiseman’s temper began to slip. “Why the hell would he?” he demanded. “You’d have no use for the stuff. And I can tell you, it’s nothing more than an antiseptic and a relaxant.”

  “Maybe,” Malone replied quietly. “But I think we’d better have it analyzed, just to see what’s in it.”

  Wiseman glared at the younger man. “Just what are you suggesting?”

  “I’m suggesting we find out what you’ve been treating these women with. My God, Arthur, we’ve got forty-six children here, more than half of whom are dead. And if you look at the dates on those charts, every one of them would have been
exposed to this BCG stuff exactly at the time of conception. Now, if DNA is going to be tampered with, when is it done?”

  “In the embryo—”

  “Even before that, Arthur. In the egg. In the nucleus of the egg.”

  The anger he had been feeling—the anger of affronted pride—suddenly drained out of Wiseman, to be replaced by fear.

  Fear, and a memory.

  How many women had he treated with BCG? Not only treated, but followed up on, reapplying the salve month after month. But had it done its job, the job it was intended for? No, it hadn’t. For even in women he had treated with BCG, the devices had still sometimes been rejected, though the salve itself remained. Remained, to do what?

  There had been a drug—how many years ago? Nearly thirty. The drug had been called thalidomide, and it had been a tranquilizer.

  And doctors all over the world, unaware or uncaring of the fact that it had never been exhaustively tested, had prescribed it for pregnant women. The results had been a nightmare of congenitally deformed infants.

  And there had been DES, where the consequence of the drug’s use was not immediately apparent, but rather lay like an invisible time bomb deep within the children—the daughters—waiting to explode into a devastating cancer.

  Now BCG. What was it going to do? What had it already done?

  “I’ll take it to the lab,” he said quietly. “But I can’t believe—” His voice dropped. “I’ll take it to the lab.”

  Leaving Malone in his office, Arthur Wiseman went into his examining room and opened his medicine cabinet. He scanned the shelves quickly, then again, more carefully this time.

  Where he was sure the jar of BCG had been, there was now only an empty space on his shelf.

  He picked up the phone and reached his nurse. “Has anyone been in my treatment room this morning?”

  “Why, yes, Dr. Wiseman. Bob Pender dropped by, and I let him take an inventory of the PharMax products you use.”

  Wiseman felt a sudden pain in his chest as his heart began to pound. “I see,” he said. “Thank you.”

  Sensing the strain in his voice, the nurse spoke again. “Wasn’t that all right? Bob’s been inventorying your drugs for years.”

  “It’s all right, Charlene,” Wiseman assured her. “I’m sure it’s quite all right.” He hung up the phone and slowly made his way back to his office. Mark Malone looked up at him, then, seeing the expression on his face, rose.

  “What is it, Arthur?”

  “Bob Pender was here,” Wiseman said softly. “And the BCG is gone.”

  “Then we’ll order more,” Malone said. He picked up the phone and asked the hospital operator to connect him with the PharMax sales desk.

  “BCG?” the man at the other end repeated. “I’m not sure I’ve ever heard of that.”

  Malone started to explain what it was he wanted, then changed his mind and handed the phone to Wiseman.

  “Bicalcioglythemine,” Wiseman snapped. “I want a twelve-ounce far, and I want to pick it up today.”

  There was a pause. Wiseman could hear pages being turned. Finally the voice at the other end spoke again. “Are you sure you have the right company? This is PharMax.”

  “TharMax Is who I want. I’ve been getting BCG from you people for ten years.”

  “And this is Eastbury Community Hospital?”

  “That’s right”

  “One moment.”

  This time Wiseman was put on hold. Nearly two minutes later the voice came back on the line.

  “I’m sorry, sir, but this company does not make a product called bicalcioglythemine, and I’ve just checked your records on our computer. I see nothing indicating that you’ve ever ordered such a thing before, nor have we ever shipped it or billed you for it. I’m afraid you must have the wrong company.”

  “I see,” Wiseman whispered. When he faced Malone again, his whole body was trembling.

  “I don’t think we need to have it analyzed, Mark,” he said softly. “I suppose, if I did enough research, I could tell you which enzymes must have been in it. There must have been some kind of restriction endonuclease and a ligase. Maybe even some free nucleotides to zip into the DNA. And, of course, the calcium base. But I don’t think I could tell you how they put it together or made the whole process work. As far as I knew, what that compound must have done isn’t possible even now, let alone ten years ago. But they must have done it. Recombinant DNA, accomplished within the uterus.”

  The phone rang on Wiseman’s desk and he spoke with the nurse once more. When he hung up the phone, his eyes avoided Mark Malone’s. “Sally and Steve are here,” he said. “Will you talk to them? I don’t think I can face them right now. I think I have to … well, I have to think this thing through. I have to decide what it all means.”

  Mark Malone rose and started toward the door. Then he turned back and faced Wiseman. “Arthur,” he said, his voice low and deadly, “are you sure you didn’t make this compound yourself?”

  What little color still remained in the old man’s face drained away. “Mark, what are you saying?”

  “Only that when the time comes, I doubt that anyone will believe you got that stuff from PharMax. Frankly, I don’t believe it myself.” Malone turned away, and a moment later Arthur Wiseman was left alone in his office.

  Chapter 29

  TIM CORLISS CAST DOLEFUL EYES on the chain blocking I the driveway to the Randolph estate. “Maybe we’d better just leave the car here and walk.”

  “Nope. I want it near the house.” Bronski opened the trunk of his car and took out a large set of chain cutters. “These should do the trick.” A moment later the chain, its end link neatly severed, lay on the asphalt, leaving the drive clear. They proceeded on to the gate, where Bronski cut the second chain, then dismantled the electric opening device so the gates swung freely. “After this, the house should be a cinch,” he remarked. He put the chain cutters back into the trunk, slid behind the wheel, and gunned the engine.

  They drove around to the back of the house, parking the car where it couldn’t be seen from the gates. Then, with Lucy and Randy trailing them, the two men approached the house. They knocked loudly at the back door, waited, then knocked again. When there was still no response, they went around to the front and repeated the procedure.

  “There’s no one here,” Lucy said at last. “They’ve all gone.”

  “We still have to try,” Bronski replied. “Let’s go in.” He stepped back from the house and gazed up at the barred windows of the second floor. “Seems as though it would be the lower windows they’d keep bars on.”

  “It was to keep us in,” Randy said. “And they always had someone in the hall too. Except that Miss Bowen didn’t always stay there.”

  “Well, at least that makes it easy for us,” Bronski murmured. He led the others around to the side of the house, where French doors opened onto a terrace overlooking the lawn. Using the butt of his gun, he shattered a pane of one of the doors, then reached through and twisted the dead bolt. He winked at Randy. “Just like in the movies.” He opened the door and led the way in.

  “It’s the dining room,” Randy explained. “And through there is the kitchen. The other doors lead to a big hall, and in the back everyone had offices.” He started eagerly across the room, but Bronski stopped him.

  “I’ll go first.”

  “Aw … there’s no one here.”

  “I’ll still go first,” Bronski insisted, even though he agreed with Randy. He led the way through the dining room and stopped in the foyer, staring up the broad staircase. “What’s up there?”

  “The bedrooms,” Randy explained. “Mine was almost at the end of the hall. Wanna see it?”

  “Okay.”

  They moved up the stairs, Bronski still in the lead. At the top, situated so that it had a full view of the wide corridor that ran the length of the hall, was a desk, emptied of its contents. They started down the hall.

  “This was Eric’s room,” Randy said,
pausing at a closed door.

  Bronski glanced at Lucy. “Eric who?” he asked.

  “Carter. I think he was from California.”

  So there it was. Eric Carter had been reported as a runaway from San Jose. Unless.…

  “Randy, did you look at all that stuff we were reading last night?”

  Randy shook his head.

  “You’re sure?”

  Randy shrugged. “It was only a bunch of numbers and stuff like that. Why would I want to read that?”

  “Okay. You said this was Eric’s room. Isn’t it anymore?”

  “Eric died” Randy said. Lucy gasped, and Randy looked anxiously up at her. “That’s why I ran away. After Eric died, I got real scared. So I ran away.”

  “Of course you did,” Jim Corliss said. “Why don’t you show us how you got out of the house?”

  Randy led them to the end of the hall, then up the narrow stairs to the attic, where the ladder, still extended, led up to the open skylight. “Then I went across the roof, and climbed down a tree,” Randy explained. “It was easy.”

  Bronski nodded. Everything was exactly as Randy had said it would be. “Let’s go back downstairs.”

  Now it was Randy who led the way, explaining to his parents and the sergeant what each of the rooms had been used for. At last they were in the clinic area, and Randy showed them the room where Peter Williams had lain unconscious for several days.

  “And what’s back there?” Bronski asked, pointing to the only door they had not yet opened. Randy stared at it, his lips pursed, and his brows knit together in puzzlement.

  “I don’t know,” he finally admitted. “I was never back there.”

  “Then let’s have a look.” Bronski, followed by the three Corlisses, started toward the door that would lead them into the laboratory.

  Morantz and Kaplan moved through the trees, being careful to stay well back in their shadows. The boy, they had been told, was the primary assignment Arid so, when the house in Eastbury had suddenly disgorged its occupants an hour before, it was the two men, the woman, and the boy whom they followed. It had been an easy tail, for they had known within minutes exactly where they were going. They had hung back, well out of sight, until their quarry reached its destination. Now they were closing in.