Tom Hyman

by Jupiter's Daughter

  “Maybe the potential reward is worth the risk,” the ambassador said5

  bending down for a closer look at his situation.

  “Maybe.”

  Mishima stepped up to the ball, took its measure, gritted his teeth, and swung lustily. A dense shower of sand spurted out in front of him.

  The ball remained stationary. “But you have doubts,” he gasped.

  Yamamoto nodded. “All he has is an untested formula. A computer program, actually. He calls it Jupiter. It might do what he claims, it might not. We can’t know until he tests it.”

  “And of course that’s what he wants the money for.”

  “Precisely.”

  Mishima, breathing heavily from his exertions, stood over the ball again and gave it another energetic wallop with his wedge iron. This time the ball shot out of the trap on a low trajectory, soared across the green like a stray bullet, struck the pin with a loud bonk, bounced ten feet straight up in the air, and came to rest three feet past the hole.

  Yamamoto shook his head in disbelief.

  Mishima beamed in triumph. “You think any of the others will make Goth an offer?” he asked.

  “Baroness von Hauser already has. And the American, Dalton Stewart—I think he’s up to something.”

  “What about the other two? Prince Bandar and that Englishman, Fairfield?”

  “It’s doubtful they’ll do anything.”

  “What’s the status of our own research programs?”

  “At a standstill, like everybody else’s.”

  “Why is that?”

  “As you well know, Ambassador, experimenting on the human germ line is illegal in most countries, including ours.”

  The diplomat appraised Yamamoto with a sidelong glance.

  “But we’re doing it anyway, aren’t we?”

  Yamamoto studied the green’s perfectly mowed carpet of bent grass.

  “Purely theoretical stuff—computer models based on genome studies, projections from animal experiments, that kind of thing. There’s no clinical experimental work being done with humans—” Mishima cut him off sharply: “I know, I know. We’ve become a more enlightened society in the past sixty years.”

  “I personally think we should be doing clinical tests on humans.

  No real progress is possible otherwise.”

  The ambassador removed the flag from the hole for his partner.

  Yamamoto crouched down to view the terrain. It was a tricky lie.

  It started off level; then ten feet from the hole the green slanted sharply to the left. Yamamoto gripped his putter and concentrated.

  “I’m not so sure,” Mishima replied. “Once an ethical boundary is breached, it becomes that much easier to breach the next one, and then the next, until one finds oneself, inexplicably, committing just the sorts of atrocities we once committed in Northern China.”

  Yamamoto overhit his shot. The ball rolled six feet past the hole. He glanced suspiciously at Mishima, who was still holding the flag. If he didn’t know the man better, he would have sworn that Mishima had timed his words to disrupt his swing.

  Yamamoto diverted his irritation into a tough question: “Can we afford to let the gaijin get ahead of us on this?” He hadn’t intended to be so confrontational, but he felt deeply that this was a matter of the utmost priority for Japan. Failure to act would in the long run expose his country to a terrible risk.

  “No,” Mishima agreed. His tone was firm, emphatic. “We cannot. Our people’s survival depends on successful economic competition. The potential economic benefits of a successful genetics package like this are obviously enormous. And if genetic engineering is going to make possible a superior race of men, then we must be that race. There can be no argument against that. None.”

  “I completely agree.”

  “But all the same, we must proceed in this matter with a strong sense of moral responsibility.”

  Diplomatic double-talk, Yamamoto thought. What Mishima really meant was, “We’ll do what we have to do, but this time let’s not get caught at it.”

  “I agree with that also,” Yamamoto said.

  “So that brings us back to Dr. Goth and his remarkable but untested program. What do you recommend?”

  “That we wait,” Yamamoto replied. He tapped his ball impatiently and watched it overshoot the cup by four inches. “Let one of the others finance Goth. Let them test Jupiter. If it doesn’t work, we’ll have risked nothing—and lost nothing.”

  “And if it does?”

  Yamamoto shrugged. “We could always borrow a copy.”

  Mishima stood by his ball, scratching his chin thoughtfully.

  Yamamoto began to twitch restlessly, waiting for his partner to make his four-foot putt.

  The ambassador eventually got his putter lined up against the ball and hit it. “Borrow a copy,” he repeated. He laughed quite explosively.

  “Yes. We could always do that.” He watched his ball advance feebly toward the hole. His diplomat’s mind had already converted the proposed theft into something vaguely acceptable.

  “And once we have the software program, we can trust our own scientists with it far more than we could ever trust Goth.”

  Mishima’s ball reached the lip, trembled there, as if its progress had been arrested by a single blade of grass, and then fell into the cup with a gentle rattle. Yamamoto cursed under his breath.

  Mishima tossed his putter into his bag with an uncharacteristic flourish and hoisted himself into the golf cart. He marked his card with the tiny stub of a pencil he was using and chuckled contentedly.

  “I believe I outscored you on that hole. Did I?”

  “You did indeed, Ambassador,” Yamamoto answered, smiling between clenched jaws.

  Dalton Stewart was met in the reception area by the minister of information, Pierre Etienne Toussaint, and ushered into the presidential palace’s cavernous dining hall.

  Their footsteps echoed like gunshots on the carpetless stone floor.

  President Despres appeared to have a passion for white, Stewart observed: white marble walls and floors, white marble pedestals with white marble busts of Roman emperors. A ridiculously long dining table was covered with a white damask tablecloth, and the chairs all had white cloth cushions. The only touches of color were two faded tapestries on the end walls, and four potted jungle plants that occupied the corners of the gigantic hall. The effect was oppressive.

  It made the vast, eerily quiet, airconditioned interior feel like a mausoleum.

  Toussaint directed Stewart to a seat four chairs down from the head of the table and then disappeared. Stewart stood behind his chair and waited. He could hear occasional footsteps echoing on distant marble, but none came through the large doorway.

  After an interminable duration, he heard a sudden flurry of footfalls.

  They beat on the stone floors in a hurried staccato, like soldiers marching double-time. The sound grew steadily louder.

  Four of Despres’ palace guards burst abruptly into the dining hall and positioned themselves one on each side of the room, forefingers ostentatiously curled around the triggers of their automatic weapons.

  A tense, expectant silence fell. All eyes were riveted on the open doorway. Dalton Stewart found himself holding his breath.

  After another delay, His Most Supreme and Enlightened Excellency Antoine Auguste Despres, President for Life of the Republic of El Coronado, came into the room.

  After the dramatically staged entrance, Antoine Despres himself was a distinct anticlimax. He was short—about five-three—and slightly built, with a mulatto’s yellowish-brown skin. His eyes were greatly magnified by the thick lenses in his glasses, and his round, bald head appeared too big for his scrawny neck. His suit was white and presumably well cut, but his sunken-chested posture largely defeated the efforts of his tailors.

  The minister of information pulled out the chair at the head of the table and Despres sat down on it. Toussaint then took a chair opposite Stewart and
gestured urgently for the American to sit down. Stewart sat. He suddenly realized the president was now staring at him.

  “We are honored to have you visit our island nation, Mr. Stewart,”

  Despres said. His voice was high-pitched and had an unpleasant grating quality to it.

  “Thank you, Your Excellency,” the American replied, a little too loudly. His words bounced off the walls and reverberated through the room. He lowered his volume and told Despres how grateful he was for the opportunity to meet him in person.

  A servant appeared, carrying an ice bucket with a bottle of white wine inside. The minister of information opened the bottle, tasted it, and nodded his approval. The wine steward filled the three glasses and moved silently to a corner of the room.

  President Despres made a long toast, the import of which was his hope that his country and the United States could overcome their differences and restore the beautiful friendship they had once enjoyed.

  Stewart reciprocated with a toast of his own, praising Despres’

  enlightened leadership, his humanitarianism, and his outstanding achievements in making El Coronado a true showcase of modern democracy in the Western Hemisphere.

  Despres answered with another toast. The exchanges dragged on for some minutes, severely taxing the American’s inventiveness and requiring a refill of wine. By the time Despres had had his fill of flattery, Stewart felt exhausted and slightly drunk.

  When the appetizer appeared—a cold fish soup of some kind —the president launched into a long, rambling defense of his administration and the wonderful things it had done for the country.

  He was a great patriot, loved by his people, but misunderstood abroad.

  All the problems of El Coronado could be laid at the doorstep of his enemies, who were jealous of his popularity and his achievements.

  The President talked almost nonstop for nearly an hour, ignoring his lunch entirely. With the arrival of dessert he finally wound down and Stewart began his pitch.

  “I come to you, Your Excellency, in the hope of getting your blessing for a clinic and a research laboratory that my company, Stewart Biotech, would like to open here in the near future.”

  The president raised a languid eyebrow. “And why have you chosen our little island for this?”

  “Because this facility will be run by Dr. Harold Goth, the American scientist whom you have so graciously allowed to use your medical school for his research. He assures me this island is the perfect place.”

  “Does he?” The president’s tone was mildly ironic.

  “He said that if it hadn’t been for your understanding, for your generosity and support, the important breakthroughs he’s been able to make in his research would most likely never have happened. Now our company wishes to underwrite Dr. Goth’s research so that he may accelerate his efforts.”

  The American continued his pitch. While careful not to refer directly to the island’s abysmal condition, Stewart painted a glowing picture of the economic vitality that the president, with his help, could bring to his country if His Excellency was willing to give him a free hand.

  Goth’s laboratory and clinic would eventually be expanded, he said. A constellation of special clinics would then be built, and they would, beyond any doubt, soon attract a great number of the world’s richest and most important people. And these people would demand luxury otels, restaurants, and stores to cater to their needs. El Coronado would eventually become one of the world’s most exclusive resorts, and the islanders’ standard of living would become the envy of the Caribbean.

  But before any of that could happen, he explained, much had to be done.

  If the promise of Goth’s research held UP? then a substantial capital investment had to be made in the country’s infrastructure. The airport had to be enlarged and modernized, the roads widened and repaved. This would cost many millions of dollars, which, despite His Excellency’s already heroic achievements in improving the economy, the island obviously could not afford on its own.

  But he, Dalton Stewart, could solve this problem. He could make this dream happen. He could find the investors and get their commitments.

  And even better, he could help His Excellency improve relations with the United States government. He even believed it was possible that he could help get U.S. aid flowing once again to El Coronado.

  But to do all this, the president had to appreciate that he would need his full support and backing. He needed promises that bureaucratic obstacles would not be placed in his way, that red tape and the usual graft and corruption would be kept to a minimum, and that he would be allowed eventually to bring in thousands of foreign personnel to plan and execute these ambitious projects.

  Stewart was careful to play to the president’s vanity and greed and to make clear that Despres’ ultimate authority would never be questioned or threatened in any way.

  If Despres was excited by the scenario, he hid it well. “And what is it, exactly, about these clinics that will bring all these wonderful changes to this little island of ours?”

  Stewart had anticipated the question. Obviously Despres already knew something of Goth’s work, and he was certain to find out more as time went on. So it was important to tell him the facts. The president had many more questions, and it took over an hour for the American to answer them all.

  By the time Dalton Stewart left the palace, a fresh breeze had begun fluttering the palms along the avenue, lifting the oppressive weight of heat that had blanketed the island for the last three days.

  Behind the breeze, purplish black thunderclouds towered high over the western horizon, promising an imminent cloudburst.

  Stewart climbed into the Land Cruiser, pulled off his white jacket, and sank back against the seat cushion. Trabert, the chauffeur, put the jeep in gear and accelerated cautiously down the street, steering between the potholes.

  Ajemian looked at him inquiringly.

  Stewart grinned. “The little bastard can hardly wait for us to get started.”

  His assistant settled his black leather attache case on his lap and snapped it open. “Well, we’ve got bad news on a different front. I just got a call from the real estate agent. Baroness von Hauser made an offer on the medical school property this morning.”

  The news jolted Stewart. “How the hell did she manage that?”

  Ajemian mopped his face with a damp handkerchief. “She offered a million two,” he said. “With a cash binder of a hundred thousand.”

  Stewart fought down his anger. It was his own fault, he decided.

  After beating out the baroness’s offer to Goth, he had assumed that she would just retreat from the field. He had underestimated the woman.

  “Who owns the place, anyway?”

  “A local bank. It was a foreclosure. Sort of. What really happened is that the government confiscated it and turned it over to the bank.

  The bank, as you might guess, is owned by President Despres.”

  Ajemian tucked the handkerchief back in his pocket and handed his boss a thick stack of overnight faxes from the New York office. To each item Ajemian had attached a sheet suggesting appropriate or alternative actions to be taken. He uncapped a pen and handed it across with the memos.

  Stewart looked at the pile with distaste. He wanted to focus on the threat posed by the baroness. “Any urgent stuff here?”

  “No. Routine.”

  Stewart worked swiftly through the pile, scribbling his decisions on Ajemian’s sheets as he went.

  “We could still make a higher offer,” Ajemian suggested. “Nobody’s signed any contracts yet.”

  Stewart thought for a minute. “No. Let’s let it go. In fact, it may be a break. It’d take too damned long to rehabilitate that property anyway. You saw it. It’s a dump. Most of the buildings are ready for the wrecking ball. Let the baroness have it. We’ll just relocate Goth to a better spot.”

  Ajemian looked at his boss questioningly. “Where?”

  “There’s a small pr
ivate hospital on the other end of the island,”

  Stewart said. “What’s it called . . . ?”

  “St. Bonaventure?”

  “That’s it. Good location, not too big, relatively modern. Let’s buy it and turn Goth loose in it. Make him head of it, if we have to.”

  “Will he go along?”

  “Why shouldn’t he? It’ll be ideal for him—airconditioned research labs, clinics, the works. Find out who owns the place and set up a meeting.”

  Dalton Stewart handed the pen and the stack of memos back to Ajemian, who promptly returned them to the attache case and closed the lid.

  The skies suddenly opened up. Sheets of tropical rain cascaded like a waterfall against the windows of the jeep. Thunder and lightning boomed and crackled over the island like an artillery bombardment.

  Stewart was pleased with his solution. He was going to stick the baroness with a worthless piece of real estate, just when she thought she had found a way to trump his deal with Goth.

  But she had thrown him a scare. And he knew he had not heard the last of her.

  Joseph Cooper awoke to hear the faint beeping of his satellite telephone, lying on the night table by his hotel bed. He picked it up.

  “Hello?”

  “Mr. Stare?”

  “Speaking.”

  “Please call your father.”

  Juptler s LJaugner ù l Cooper muttered a groggy “Thank you,” but the voice had already vanished into the ether.

  He dialed a memorized number located somewhere in Fairfax County, Virginia, and waited. The “call your father” business was a simple security precaution—a way for his control, a man he knew only by the name Roy, to make certain that it was Cooper on the other end of the line.

  “Stare? You there?”

  “Yes.”

  “Goth is moving.”

  “Oh?”

  “St. Bonaventure Hospital. Do you know where it is?”

  “Yes.”

  “Check it out, please.”

  “You want it bugged, too?”

  “That would seem appropriate.”

  “Yeah. Okay….”

  The baroness loved decisive moments.

  Her opponent at the other end of the tennis court was Hans Dieterbach, secretary of foreign economic aid and development in the German government.