Green beans and noodles . . . steak. Hmm! “I’d love to,” I say. He gives me directions to the apartment on the same floor as the boardroom and in several minutes, after returning to turn off the burner under the pan of water, Lance is introducing me around the gathering. Ms. Bravelli is there, as well as Henri Cassell whose body language tells me he would rather I return to Seattle. I consider that he is the way he is because not only is he an accountant, but he is an accountant of the highest order—a CFO. He is probably lemon faced at anyone who increases company spending.
There are two faces I have not yet met. They are standing together, one with a glass of clear liquid and ice, the other with a can of V8 juice.
“Jacob,” Lance says as we approach the two men. “I’d like you to meet Zechariah Price, our photojournalist. Zach, this is Doctor Jacob Zitnik, our lead genetic engineer.”
The V8 juice shifts from right to left and I lose my hand in the cold, wet remains.
“And Doctor Zitnik’s assistant, a seasoned genetic engineer in his own right, Professor Merwin Boggs.”
I make note that the clear liquid, which I can smell is not water, is already in the left hand. I candidly wipe my wet palm past my jeans and then take the warm, but fat and knobby hand of Professor Boggs. The two together look sort of like Mutt and Jeff: Zitnik tall, lanky, huge long face; Boggs about six inches shorter and plump, small round face; the former in his mid fifties, the latter in his early forties ; Zitnik looks rumpled, Boggs looks casual. “Nice to meet you,” I say.
“Yes, yes,” Boggs says rapidly. “Quite nice to make your acquaintance.”
“The professor comes to us from down-under,” Lance says. “They’ve been doing some fine research in cloning down there. Managed to repeat a kangaroo, believe it or not.”
“You cloned a kangaroo!” I’m sincerely impressed.
“Yes, yes. Only lived a week or so, you know. Nothing really, compared to what Doctor Zitnik has done here.”
“You certainly had a hand in it,” Lance says.
“Yes, yes, I did. But Jacob’s the brain. He deserves most of the credit, you know.”
This man knows on which side his toast is buttered and who did the buttering. I wonder how much credit he gives to Zitnik in the privacy of his bathroom mirror. I turn to the Doctor. “I’d ask how you went about accomplishing what I just saw out there, the triplet sabre-toothed cats, but I’d expect your explanation would be a tad over my head.”
It’s interesting when talking to tall people. Some have a way of not speaking down to you, not making you feel small. Doctor Zitnik is not one of them. He is six-two, maybe six-three. I’m five-ten in thick socks, but the difference seems to be at least a foot, as if I have to strain my neck to look up at him. Maybe it’s the way he seems to strain his neck to look down at me.
“Actually, it’s not that difficult to understand,” he says.
I wait for something further, such as an example of what he did to extract DNA from whatever sample they acquired from La Brea. He says nothing more. Quiet or secretive?
I break the silence before it becomes too long. “I’d like to visit your lab some time and get an educational tour.”
Zitnik looks at Lance.
“Don’t worry, Jacob,” Lance says. “Zach is working for us, not for a tabloid. All his words and photographs will belong to Sans Sanssabre.”
Although he has already made that point clear, only now does it suddenly hit home. I sold the rights to my own words and images.
I sold the rights to my head.
“I see,” Zitnik says in such a way that I know I have another person waiting in line to escort me to the helicopter. I’m actually finding myself wondering if it’s not a bad idea.
“Quite right, I’d say,” Boggs says. “Good idea if you come down—get a groundhog view of the operation.”
Zitnik gives him a look Boggs doesn’t see. Boggs may know on which side his toast is buttered, but he just dropped it, buttered side down.
Boggs turns to Zitnik. “I think this is great, Jacob. I haven’t understood up to now why we aren’t publishing papers on this. Hell, man, we can read all about Dolly and Copy Cat, and the Tasmanian tiger the Aussie Museum is still trying to recreate. They get all kinds of press and we sit here in a vacuum.”
“That is by design,” Lance says.
“We don’t need that kind of publicity at this time, Merwin,” Zitnik says. “We’d have busloads of anti-cloning fanatics at our gates.”
Lance smiles. “Exactly.”
I get the impression there’s more to this secrecy than not wanting to ring bells in the anti-cloning community. Industrial secrets, yes. What is the industry they’re protecting? And if it’s so secret, why am I here? Where are my words and images going to go? Into a locked file cabinet somewhere?
“We’ve made progress because we haven’t had private, government, or industrial fanatics in our face.”
But then, I can’t forget, I have a job. If I were washing dishes I certainly wouldn’t care if it was secret or not, as long as I got paid.
“We’ve found a way around most of the obstacles other DNA cloning research companies have come up against,” Lance continues. “Even Copy Cat, the raved about success in Texas, came about after, what is it, eighty failures?”
“Eighty-six,” Zitnik corrects. “And all they learned from those embryos is that it was a crapshoot. It could take them less or more the next time.”
Pulitzer! That means publication. I tilt my head up to Zitnik. “How many failures did you have before the success I saw earlier?”
He looks at me as though surprised I’m still here. “We have only had two embryos die.”
“You would think the animal rights bunch would be excited by all this,” Boggs says. “They worry about animals going extinct, yet when there is talk of bringing an extinct one back, they grumble even more.”
I respond to Zitnik. “Was that a crap shoot as well? Would your next attempt take eighty-seven?”
Instead of responding to my question, Doctor Zitnik looks at Lance and says, “It’s a wonder why people don’t like reporters.”
I’m not a reporter, I’m a writer, I want to blurt out. Instead, I go on the offensive. “Journalists are accused of not writing the truth. I find the case is more that we are not told the entire truth. Some journalists know this and try to guess based on half-truths. Most, like myself, ask probing questions to get to the truth. What’s to say the creators of this Copy Cat manage to do it again in one attempt? That would make them look pretty good, wouldn’t it, like they solved the problems. And then the third time they don’t produce a fluffy kitten until after the hundred and seventy-third failure. Where does that place your experiments, Doctor Zitnik? A hundred and seventy dead embryos next time?”
Zitnik smiles, but it isn’t a happy smile. “I will not be dragged into an argument with a reporter.”
“Photojournalist!” I immediately regret my blurt.
His eyes start to roll, and then they shift over and down to Boggs. “Maybe you’re right, Merwin. We should give Mister Price a tour. Show him the truth. I would hate to think he has to make things up.” He looks at me. “If you will excuse me.”
Zitnik walks away without further comment.
Boggs looks after him. “Wonder what has gotten into him today?”
“Doesn’t matter,” Lance says. “Let’s run Zach through the lab tomorrow morning, Merwin. Say about nine.”
“Yes, yes. Sounds good to me.”
I note that Victor Vandermill has entered wearing an apron. Zitnik corners him and I surmise he’s requesting that both his steak and my hide be well-done. I’m curious to know if this is the way Sans Sanssabre always operates—with several levels of dissension—or is it only my presence that’s causing the friction. I would stake my first pay check that there was a bad odor in the air before I arrived. Maybe there is some worry that I’ll find the source.
Chapter 7
People a
re easy and abundant prey.
—Spell of the Tiger
It’s just after the 9:00 a.m. hour. The elevator doors open and we step into a small room with a door to the right, a door to the left, and a window that looks into a typical looking lab. I really didn’t know what to expect but doubt a high school size lab was it. Maybe I was expecting something bigger; a dozen people in hospital coats and surgical masks looking into microscopes. All I see are Doctor Zitnik and Merwin Boggs in white coats, conferencing over a book at a desk. I follow Lance through the door to the right into what he describes as part library, part conference room and part multimedia room.
“This will be available to you anytime, Zach. Anything remotely related to the subject of cloning, DNA, PCR, Bengal tigers or sabre-toothed cats, is probably here.”
I scan the titles. “What’s PCR?”
“Polymerase Chain Reaction. It’s a procedure Professor Boggs recently obtained for us from Australia. It’s been used rather successfully in early experiments with the Tasmanian tiger. There are two papers in here about that. Boggs or Aileen could help you find them. Also, if you need any help with the indexing system, call on Aileen. One of her collateral duties is that of librarian.”
We step from the library, back into the room with the window and the elevator. The two are still at the desk. Suddenly their heads turn toward a door that opens at the far end of the lab. A woman in a matching white coat enters, frantically waving her hands in the air. Zitnik rushes to her and becomes equally agitated. Boggs joins them on the run and then all three disappear through the door.
Lance picks up a phone on the wall and dials. “This is Lance. What’s happening?”
I watch the expression on his face twist.
“How bad? . . . Where’s the cat? . . . Shoot it! . . . Oh! . . . Right. I’ll be right there. Call Victor. . . No, don’t call EMS. We’ll transport.” He hangs up the phone and then dials again. “Get the bird hot. We’ve got an emergency—need to transport to the hospital. Call ahead and let them know it’s an animal attack, heavy bleeding . . . Right.”
I follow him from the room and we rush along a passageway, turn a corner and then another corner. We come upon Boggs, Zitnik and the woman crowded around a door, out of which comes a uniformed man with a rifle. The woman rushes in.
“The cat’s down—asleep,” he says. “May be too late for the doc, though.”
We follow the woman into what looks to be a clinic. A second uniformed man is on the floor, his hands covered in blood as he attempts to stop the bleeding of another white-coated, blood-soaked individual. It is well apparent to me that the effort will be useless. There is not much remaining of the left side of his neck. The woman is on the floor now with scissors, frantic, cutting away the coat and any clothing beneath it. Boggs and Zitnik, who disappeared for a moment, reappear with a stretcher. The only words are a few instructions here and there, and then the bloodied uniform says, “Lift.” Victor Vandermill and Ms. Bravelli arrive. The two uniforms rush out the door with the dying, if not already dead man. The woman has taken over the job of trying to stop the bleeding, walking/running with the stretcher. The look on her face leaves an indelible imprint on me.
“I’ll go with them,” says Ms. Bravelli and then rushes away.
“Call as soon as you get to the hospital,” Victor calls after her. “What happened?” he says to Lance.
“Don’t know. No chance to ask.”
Doctor Zitnik says, “When Traci ran into the lab she said Peter unlocked the cage and then Simon came out of the cage and leaped onto his back.”
“Where is the cat now?” Victor asks.
“Over here,” Lance says and leads us around a stainless steel table. A small, yellow coated animal is lying on its side. A dart rises and falls with the animal’s breathing. He’s no bigger than a medium-sized dog, and looks to be no more of a threat, except for the set of sabre-teeth. They are only a few inches long, plenty long enough for a human neck. “Let’s get him back into the cage.”
Boggs steps forward and the two of them lift the cat. Zitnik holds the door of the cage, which sits on a rolling cart the size of a standard utility table. I then notice there is another similar cart with a matching cage and cat, only this cat, this sabre-toothed animal, is awake and alert. I step away and turn around only to nearly step in what I had been trying to avoid looking at, the blood left behind by Peter, who I assume is, or was the veterinarian. Gorge rises into my throat and I rush out into the hall.
I am sitting in the library staring at an open book, except I’m seeing nothing but the security guy’s hand buried in the blood, muscle and cartilage of Peter’s neck. I’m trying to assess my reaction. I was doing okay with the entire scene until I nearly stepped into the blood. I fought to keep the contents of my stomach down and somehow navigated my way back to the library where I thought it would be cool and calm. It’s calm, but I’m sweating like a losing prizefighter in the tenth round. I close the book, leave the library and call the elevator. As I wait I note that the lab is still empty.
The elevator arrives and I ride it up to the third floor. I’m glad to get off. In the small closed up space I nearly suffocate on the stink of my own fear.
Fear!
That thought scares me because I suddenly realize I’m afraid of these animals. I’ve never been afraid before, at least not like this. I grab the Eskimo parka from my apartment and go looking for a door out into the cold. I wouldn’t have believed an hour before that I would be looking forward to the frostbite, but that is exactly what I’m thinking. Freeze this fear out of me.
Since I came in by helicopter I don’t know where the front entrance is. I take the stairs instead of the elevator to the main floor and wind up in an entry foyer, looking out into the white winter through double glass doors. A huge grizzly stands watch over the entry. I shrink away beneath it fearing that it might come to life and take my head in its huge jaws in one lunge. I push through the first set of doors, give a weary glance to a stuffed cougar on a pedestal and then push through the second set of doors. I open my coat and let the bitter cold wrap around me in an effort to drive the nausea and fear from of my bones.
The cold is bitter despite how good it feels at first. Pleasure in pain can last for only a short time before you want it to stop. It can’t be more than a minute before the pleasure is gone and I turn to go back in.
The door is locked.
Maybe I’m not pulling hard enough. I yank with everything and am rewarded with very cold hands. I did not bring gloves or a hat or anything but the coat. I button and zip, stuff my hands deep into the pockets and step away from the door. There is one of those key pads on the right. I should have been given the code, one of those things someone forgot to tell me.
I bang on the door with my head because I don’t want to remove my hands from the protection of the pockets. I don’t expect anyone to respond. There is not even a front desk for someone to be sitting at. There is only a huge entry foyer with a cougar for a doorman and a grizzly for a receptionist, and they could care less if I freeze to death.
“Shit!” I yell into the wilderness that makes up the front yard of Sans Sanssabre.
I consider walking around the building to see if there is any other entrance, or a window through which I can get someone’s attention, but the snow is several feet deep and I’m wearing only an old pair of athletic shoes. My toes are already feeling early signs of freezer life. I look at the door and wonder if I can break through it. I step back as far as I can and consider how to hit it, wonder if I’ll have a job afterwards, wonder if they will find me dead if I don’t. I decide that I’ll run full speed and then at just the last second I’ll turn and throw myself at it backwards, put my full weight into it.
I start to run and then suddenly notice another box next to the keypad. This looks like a little speaker box with a button. I slide to a stop, walk over to it, and push the button. “Hello!”
Nothing.
I patiently wait at
least three seconds and then yell hello again with my mouth one inch from where I think the microphone is.
Still nothing.
I stomp around and try to flap my arms for warmth without removing my hands from my pockets. I hope I am not being videotaped. I can imagine what Tanya would be thinking as she views what I was doing just before I froze to death. Can she sue Sans Sanssabre because they forgot to give me the code to get into the building in which I work and live? I realize I still haven’t called her and that the last time we spoke the words were not so pleasant. Tanya refused to wake the girls so I didn’t get to talk to them. So what if it was two in the morning? So what if I hadn’t sent money in a month? So what if I was flat broke and worried about how I was going to pay the rent? So what if all I had were wieners and the cheap brand of macaroni and cheese?
But I did send her money. The advance that came with the Sans Sanssabre contract was considerable—downright embarrassing to be truthful. $5,000. I put three months down on the apartment, kept a couple hundred for myself and sent the remainder to Tanya. I never talked to her. I was going to wait until I knew she got it so I could hear the surprise in her voice, but I don’t know what happened. Time went by and the next thing I knew I was on the flight to Montana.
I wonder if Sans Sanssabre will pay my funeral expenses.
My ears hurt. I cover them with my hands and pace back and forth. I stop, yell into the call box again, shove my hands back in my pockets and run in circles. I do this three or four times; I’m not counting. I stomp down the walkway in my own tracks in the inch or so of snow and wonder how long it would be before someone would come shovel it. When I pass out I need to make sure I lie where they can see me, not fall in the snow bank where I might disappear until spring.
It is spring! It’s March 23. So where the hell is the grass and flowers?
I turn around to jog back toward the door and discover a security person opening it. “May I help you?”
“Yes! Yes!” I utter around my frozen lips and run toward him. “I locked myself out. Don’t have the code yet. I’m freezing my ass off.”
Sabre-Toothed Cat Trilogy Page 5
