by Scott Britz
She pressed close to him, so close that for a second he thought he might actually have won her over. But her voice was ice-cold. “Frankly, Mr. Niedermann, any check from you wouldn’t be worth the paper it’s written on. You’re trying to bribe me by offering to betray Charles Gifford, cutting into his patent rights, in order to get me to persuade him to help you betray your employer, Phillip Eden. No thank you. Even if I did have any influence over Charles—which I don’t—I wouldn’t help you.”
Cricket’s smooth, bronzed throat—so close to him, so delicate—almost begged to be strangled. “You’re making a very costly mistake,” Niedermann warned, straining not to give in to her provocation.
“Actually, I think I’m avoiding one. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I still have a virus to track down.”
She slipped her face mask back in place and hastened into the lab, female smugness in every step. Niedermann stood fuming in disbelief. The stupid little bitch! What had he asked from her but a few words of persuasion? Words that would have cost her nothing. Of course, ten percent of Eden Pharm would have been extravagant—impractical, even. That was just bait. But once he came to power he would have made sure she got something. It would have been well worth her while.
She would regret this decision. She had underestimated him. There was more than one way to play this game. If you didn’t want to be the bat, you could be the ball.
He still had a hold on Charles Gifford—a hold that was stronger than sex. Stronger than money. Stronger than power or fame. In fact, right about now, it was the most powerful, most important thing in the world.
A tiny little thing. A invisibly small string of a couple hundred thousand base pairs of DNA. And it tied him and Charles together more firmly than a ring of iron.
The Methuselah Vector.
Four
MRS. WALLS, THAT OLD SOURPUSS WITH bobbed, gray hair and gray suit, who looked like a refugee from some ancient, black-and-white world before color was even invented, jumped out of her seat and raced to the door with all the speed of a panicky, gray turtle.
“You can’t go in there. He’s just finished a TV interview and he—”
“He’ll see me, Mrs. Walls. It’s important,” said Emmy, the locomotive of a train that included Chucky Carlson and his sister, Bonnie, all joined hand in hand the way Yolanda had taught them. In this contest between the momentum of youth and the rigidity of old age, old age didn’t stand a chance. Emmy flung open the door and charged into the book-lined sanctum of Dr. Charles Gifford, MD, PhD.
“Uncle Charles, you’ve got to help me.”
Gifford, holding a phone to one ear, motioned for Emmy to come in. As Mrs. Walls beat a slow-motion retreat, Emmy plopped down into the big, high-backed chair to wait out the call. Chucky and Bonnie gravitated to Hannibal, who lay in a patch of sun on the carpet. Hannibal didn’t so much as flick an ear as they began pawing over him.
Emmy loved this room—not because of the musty, old books, but because of the fine portrait of Doreen Gifford that hung over the fireplace. It was as though Doreen were alive. Emmy hadn’t always appreciated her. Doreen had died when Emmy was twelve and just learning to take notice of womanly beauty, and for a couple of years before that the old woman had gotten a kind a funny look because of that disease she had. But this painting showed her in her prime. Emmy was certain Doreen must have been one of the most beautiful women in the world, like that actress in the movie Casablanca.
Uncle Charles’s phone call went on forever. “I understand, Dr. Niles, that you have to meet with the JCAHO committee, but this is an emergency. I’m afraid that tomorrow afternoon may be too late. Can’t you find a way to reschedule? . . . All right, I understand. . . . Perhaps you could at least review the clinical findings? The contact person here would be Sandra Rensselaer-Wright. . . . Yes, that Sandra Rensselaer-Wright. . . .Yes, yes, I know she’s one of the best, but . . . Please, could you just look into it, and let me know what you think? . . . Okay, thanks.” Finally, with an exasperated sigh, Uncle Charles slammed down the receiver.
“My mom’s causing problems, right?”
“It’s just a doctor from Massachusetts General Hospital, in Boston. I want him to give us a second opinion about Yolanda. We’re all worried about her.”
“What has she got?”
“Your mother thinks it could be something like ebola.”
“Ebola?” Emmy laughed incredulously. “If it is, Mom probably gave it to her. I mean, isn’t that some kind of African disease?”
Uncle Charles looked impatient. “What can I do for you, Emmy?”
“Can I move into Weiszacker House for a few days?”
“For heaven’s sake, why?”
“Because my mom’s trying to take me away to Atlanta and I’m absolutely not going there.”
“Strong words, Emmy.”
“I’m serious, Uncle Charles. I’m not some kind of psycho loner who can just pack up and move to the other end of the country. I have friends.” Emmy raised her hands in exasperation. “I’m about to start senior year. She couldn’t screw me up worse than to make me start all over for senior year.”
Emmy heard an annoying grating sound and glanced to see Bonnie dragging a stainless-steel bowl of dog food across the floor to a spot in front of Hannibal’s face. Hannibal opened his eyes halfway, but seemed otherwise as bored as a dog could be.
Uncle Charles folded his hands with his index fingers touching his lips. “What did you have in mind?”
“Hide me.”
“Here?” He chuckled. “You’re not just a box of jewelry. You’d be awfully tough to hide.”
“Just until she gives up and goes away. Please?”
“Why don’t you just tell the divorce-court judge that you want to stay with your father?”
“ ’Cause Mom’s got Dad over a barrel. That car accident. Plus . . . plus . . . it’s like he’s still in love with her. He couldn’t say no to her if his life depended on it.”
“What’s between you and your mother, anyway?”
“It's not that I hate her. There are even things I admire about her. But she turned her back on me and Dad. She has no right to come in and take over my life.”
“You know, Emmy, we all make mistakes. But love is pretty hardy. If the roots are intact, it can often grow back.” Gifford paused and leaned back in his chair and folded his hands again. Only this time, instead of putting his fingers to his lips, he tapped them against each other, thinking hard. “Hmmm. There may be an option you haven’t thought about, Emmy.”
“What’s that?”
“Suppose your mother didn’t go back to Atlanta. Suppose she made a decision to stay here.”
Emmy’s blue-lidded eyes widened. “Get out of here! Are you serious?”
Gifford nodded. “Yes, I offered her a job. It’s not definite that she’ll take it. In fact, I think she’s a little angry with me right now. But that would solve your problem, wouldn’t it?”
Emmy bolted from her chair and threw her arms around Gifford’s neck. “Oh, Uncle Charles! Thank you, thank you, thank you!”
“Now, now. I said it wasn’t a done deal.” He chuckled. “But you’ve given me an idea. Maybe if I talked your father into joining our side—”
“Do it now, please. Please, Uncle Charles. Dad’s in the cove right now, working on the Bay Dreamer.”
“Okay, okay.” Gifford twisted his neck to catch a breath of air.
At last Emmy let her arms slip from him. Her face was radiant. “I guess we’d better go.” Bonnie and Chuck were on the floor, petting Hannibal. “Come on, guys. I have some cookies and milk back at my place.”
Bonnie put on a whiny face. “I want to go home. Where’s my mommy?”
“She’s not feeling well, Bumblebee. She has, like, a bad cold and doesn’t want you to catch it.”
“I won’t catch it. I p
romise.”
Emmy smelled the nasty organ-meat smell of dog food and looked down at the bowl in front of Hannibal’s nose. It was completely full. “Now, what’s this doing here?”
“The doggy feels bad, too. If he eats, he’ll feel better.”
“Well, someone’s gonna trip on it,” Emmy said, reaching for the bowl.
Suddenly, the jaws of an enormous bear trap seemed to spring shut on her wrist—and just as quickly let go. Drawing back her hand, she saw Hannibal’s black eyes squinting at her malevolently, as he retracted his lips to display row upon row of white, saw-blade teeth. A low growl simmered in his throat.
“He bit me!” Emmy screamed. Blood was dripping from her hand, as copious as the tears that streamed over her cheeks. She cried over the blood, the pain, and the betrayal all at once.
Uncle Charles flew out of his chair. “Mrs. Walls! Mrs. Walls!” he shouted. The old woman had already been drawn to the scene by Emmy’s scream. “Get these children out of here.” He interposed himself between Emmy and Hannibal, who sat growling, his ears tipped back and his neck arched as if he were about to spring forward. As soon as Bonnie and Chuck were out of the room, Gifford angrily kicked the bowl against the wall and pointed to the far corner. “Hannibal! Go!”
Hannibal stood up and edged crabwise toward the corner—head down, muzzle pointed at the floor, but slanting his eyes to keep Emmy and Uncle Charles in view. When he reached the corner, he lay down, breathed heavily a few times, and then rolled over onto his side.
“Why did he do that?” wailed Emmy.
“I don’t know. He’s never . . . He was fine this morning.”
Emmy held up her hand, causing the blood to trickle to her elbow, but keeping it off her blue-and-white polka-dot sundress.
“Let me see that,” said Gifford. Emmy herself couldn’t bear to look. “Here, let’s rinse it.” He led her to his small lavatory and ran a stream of cold water over her hand. “Can you wiggle your fingers?”
Emmy tried. “It hurts.”
“I don’t think anything’s broken. But the skin’s lacerated. You might need a stitch or two.”
“More stitches!” said Emmy. “I’m going to look like Frankenstein.”
“A very lovely Miss Frankenstein. The way you wear your stitches, young lady, they might start to become fashionable.”
Gifford’s calm manner took her mind off the blood and pain, and she ventured a wan smile.
Gifford shut off the faucet and blotted Emmy’s hand dry with a towel. From the medicine cabinet, he took a roll of clean gauze and started to wrap it around Emmy’s fingers. “I’ll just cover it lightly for now. You need to go down to the infirmary and have them dress this properly.”
Emmy held up her throbbing hand and anxiously inspected the gauze wrapping. She was relieved to see no blood soaking through. “You won’t forget to talk to Dad, will you?”
Uncle Charles extended his hand toward the door. “I’ll go and see him this very minute.”
Five
AS GIFFORD STEPPED ONTO THE PLANK pier at Wabanaki Cove, the glare of the afternoon sun seemed to pierce all the way to the back of his head. He was still in shock about Yolanda. She should have been doing better by now. He couldn’t get over the feeling that Cricket had missed something.
He felt restless and snappish. It was almost intolerable to have to sit through interview after interview. Practically every minute of his day had been scheduled weeks in advance, so there was little he could do. But the triumph he once thought he would feel this week was missing.
Cricket, who should have been a support to him, was instead a second cause for worry. He hated having to go to Hank Wright, hat in hand, to ask for help with her. But there was no one else to turn to.
The deck of the sleek white fiberglass sailboat gave a hollow thud as Gifford jumped onto it. “Hank!” he called out. Peering through the open companionway, he saw Hank’s legs stretched out across the floor of the galley, his hips wedged between a sink and a sofa-dinette, his spine supported against a tiny stove. Between his feet were scattered a dozen or so small metal parts, oozing oil onto a mat of white paper. The blue valve cover of the boat’s engine peeked out through a tangle of gray hoses and copper pipe. But Hank’s face was hidden from view.
“Engine problems?”
“Just replacing the fuel filter,” came Hank’s voice. “I’m getting her ready to sell. Don’t suppose you’d be interested? She’s a Wauquiez thirty-eight-footer. A damned fine boat.”
“Sorry. The sky’s my element. My little Cessna is my baby.”
“I hate to let her go, but it’s this or the condo. I overmortgaged everything to pay off Cricket after the divorce. Now I can’t keep up, especially with your friend Jack Niedermann putting my job ‘under review.’ I figure the Bay Dreamer’s worth eighty or ninety grand. If I can clear at least thirty-five after the sale, that’ll bring all my condo payments up-to-date.”
Gifford passed his hand lightly over the molded seat just above the companionway. Satisfied that it was dry and clean, he sat down and leaned into the opening. “Hank, I need help with Cricket.”
Hank chuckled. “My condolences.” Without looking up, he scooted forward and began pumping a wrench back and forth against a bolt deep in the engine compartment. It annoyed Gifford that Hank wouldn’t turn and look at him. All he could see was a bald spot the size of a quarter on the crown of the younger man’s head.
“I’ve, uh, asked her to take over as director of Acadia Springs.”
Hank whistled.
“I’m serious.”
Hank drew out the bolt and wiped it with a rag. “Don’t get me wrong. I think it’s an inspired choice. But if you ask her to take over, she will take over. She won’t be one of your Niedermann-style lackeys.”
“She hasn’t agreed yet. And, quite frankly, I think I may have blown it with her. I’ve done something I regret. It’s gotten us on the wrong footing.”
“Welcome to the club.”
Gifford wondered if Hank was smirking at him. “You know how sick Yolanda Carlson is. I asked Cricket to take charge of her case. But she’s flashing her CDC badge around all the labs on campus, disrupting everyone’s work, and spreading a rumor that we’ve got a case of ebola or something.” Gifford felt the boat roll slightly as the wake of a passing motorboat struck the hull. After that, all he heard was the sloshing of the water. He leaned back over the companionway. “Look, Hank, I’m going to level with you. This paranoid idea of ebola could end up hurting a lot of people. I don’t think it’s good for Yolanda. It’s wasting time when we need to find out what’s really wrong with her.”
“Yolanda, hell. This is about the Methuselah Vector, isn’t it?”
“It’s about a lot of things.” Gifford sensed hostility in Hank’s tone of voice. Reaching out was beginning to feel like a mistake. “Listen—Cricket could have a bright future here, if only she’d learn to play along.”
Hank laughed. “You’ve come to the wrong guy, Charles. Controlling Cricket—now, that’s a skill I never mastered. She’s taking my goddamn daughter from me. You think I would let that happen if I had any influence over her?”
“I thought you two were on friendly terms. Yolanda said you were letting her . . .” Gifford found his tongue tied at the words sleep over at your place.
“She’s still my crazy girl, Charles. I’d give her the moon and stars if she asked for ’em. I’m just saying that I have no influence.”
“Please. I need you to talk to her. If she took the job, Emmy wouldn’t have to leave Acadia Springs. Surely that’s what you want, too.”
Hank picked up a screwdriver, leaned back over the engine, and began tapping the manifold. “Go fuck yourself, Charles. Don’t try to tell me what I want.”
“Am I wrong?”
“You’ve got a lot of nerve coming to me for help. After
what you and Jack Niedermann did. Taking away my computer lab. Threatening to cut me off if I breathed a word against your precious Methuselah Vector.”
“Yes, I did take away your lab—after you tried to get Nature to publish a dangerous and speculative theory. Jack was all for throwing you to the wolves when we found out. It was I who saved your job.”
“Only to keep me quiet.”
“Come on, Hank. Your theory—this ‘redundant targeting’ idea, as you called it—was all speculation. I gave you a chance to prove it and you didn’t. In fact, you disproved it.”
A loud thump came from the cabin below. Only Hank’s back and hips were visible, but his voice came through clearly. “It’s mathematics, Charles. Not speculation. Because of the way the Methuselah Vector inserts itself into a cell’s DNA, there are always going to be a few off-target insertions. The Vector can wind up going places where you never meant it to go. I can calculate the statistical probability of that happening. That’s beyond dispute. What I can’t do is figure out how to detect it biologically. Because, frankly, I’m not a biologist. In a wet lab I don’t know my ass from a hole in the ground.”
“Your calculated probability of an insertion event was, as I recall, infinitesimally small. Even if you were right, the biological effect would have been trivial. So what’s the point?”
“I don’t know. I’m just a number cruncher. But the fact remains, you folks don’t know as much about this thing as you think you do. I pointed out just one blind spot.”
Gifford drummed his fingers against the frame of the companionway. “You don’t understand what a battle it is to bring a drug like this onto the market. The politics is insane. It’s killing me. It’s robbing me of sleep and giving me migraines. But I have a duty to use every resource in my hands to bring the Vector to the world. I can’t let anything stand in its way.”
“You mean, in your way.”
Gifford clenched his teeth to keep from lashing back. He had known Hank long enough to be aware that, despite his drinking binges and his live-and-let-live attitude, he could be stubborn when pushed. And he could be dangerous. The Nature manuscript had been compellingly written. If Nature’s editor in chief hadn’t been an old UCLA classmate, nothing would have kept it out of print. “I didn’t come here to fight with you, Hank,” Gifford said, when he had had time to calm down. “I came because Emmy asked me to.”
