Mutation

by Robin Cook

  Removing the slides from the microscope, Victor went back to where Robert was working. They’d worked together so long, Victor could join in and help without a single word of direction from Robert.

  After making herself a second cup of coffee, Marsha sat down at the table and looked out at the rainy day with its heavy clouds. It felt good not to have to go to the office, although she still had to make her inpatient rounds. She wondered if she should be more concerned than she was about Victor’s arranging for a bodyguard for VJ. That certainly sounded ominous. At the same time, it sounded like a good idea. But she was still sure there were facts that Victor was keeping from her.

  Footsteps on the stairs heralded the arrival of both VJ and Philip. They greeted Marsha but were much more interested in the refrigerator, getting out milk and blueberries for their cereal.

  “What are you two planning on doing today?” Marsha asked when they’d sat down at the table with her.

  “Heading in to the lab,” VJ said. “Is Dad there?”

  “He is,” Marsha said. “What happened about the idea of going to Boston for the day with Richie Blakemore?”

  “Didn’t pan out,” VJ said. He gave the blueberries a shove toward Philip.

  “That’s too bad,” Marsha said.

  “Doesn’t matter,” VJ said.

  “There is something I want to talk to you about,” Marsha said. “Yesterday I had a conversation with Valerie Maddox. Do you remember her?”

  VJ rested his spoon in his dish. “I don’t like the sound of this. I remember her. She’s the psychiatrist whose office is on the floor above yours. She’s the lady with the mouth that looks like she’s always getting ready to kiss somebody.”

  Philip laughed explosively, spraying cereal in the process. He wiped his mouth self-consciously while trying to control his laughter. VJ laughed himself, watching Philip’s antics.

  “That’s not very nice,” Marsha said. “She is a wonderful woman, and very talented. We talked about you.”

  “This is starting to sound even worse,” VJ said.

  “She has offered to see you and I think it would be a good idea. Maybe twice a week after school.”

  “Oh, Mom!” VJ whined, his face contorting into an expression of extreme distaste.

  “I want you to think about it,” Marsha said. “We’ll talk again. It is something that might help you as you get older.”

  “I’m too busy for that stuff,” VJ complained, shaking his head.

  Marsha had to laugh to herself at that comment. “You think about it anyway,” she said. “One other thing. I just spoke to your father. Has he said anything to you about being concerned about your safety, anything like that?”

  “A little,” VJ said. “He wanted me to watch out for Beekman and Hurst. But I never see those guys.”

  “Apparently he’s still worried,” Marsha said. “He just told me that he has arranged for a man to be with you during the day. That man’s name is Pedro and he’s on his way over here.”

  “Oh, no!” VJ complained. “That will drive me nuts.”

  After finishing her inpatient rounds, Marsha got on Interstate 495 and headed west to Lowell. She got off after only three exits, and with the help of some directions she’d written on a prescription blank, she wound around on little country roads until she found 714 Mapleleaf Road, an ill-kept, Victorian-style house painted a drab gray with white trim. At some time in the past it had been converted into a duplex. The Fays lived on the first floor. Marsha rang the bell and waited.

  Marsha had called from the hospital so the Fays knew to expect her. Despite the fact that their daughter had worked for her and Victor for eleven years, Marsha had only met the mother and father at Janice’s funeral. Janice had been dead for four years. Marsha felt odd standing on her parents’ porch, waiting for them to open the door. Knowing Janice so intimately for so many years, Marsha had come to the conclusion that there had been significantly disturbing emotional undercurrents in her family, but she had no idea what they could have been. On that issue, Janice had been completely noncommunicative.

  “Please come in,” Mrs. Fay said after she’d opened the door. She was a white-haired, pleasant-looking but frail woman who appeared to be in her early sixties. Marsha noted that the woman avoided eye contact.

  The inside of the house was much worse than the outside. The furniture was old and threadbare. What made it particularly unpleasant was that the place was dirty. Wastepaper baskets were filled to overflowing with such things as beer cans and McDonald’s wrappers. There were even cobwebs in one corner up near the ceiling.

  “Let me tell Harry that you’re here,” Mrs. Fay said.

  Marsha could hear the sounds of a televised sporting event somewhere in the background. She sat down, but kept to the very edge of the sofa. She didn’t want to touch anything.

  “Well, well,” said a husky voice. “About time the fancy doctor paid us a visit is all I can say.”

  Marsha turned to see a large man with a huge belly and wearing a tank-top undershirt come into the room. He walked right up to her and stuck out a calloused hand for her to shake. His hair was cut severely in a military-style crew cut. His face was dominated by a large, swollen nose with red capillaries fanning the side of each nostril.

  “Can I offer you a beer or something?” he asked.

  “No, thank you,” Marsha said.

  Harry Fay sank into a La-Z-Boy armchair. “To what do we owe this visit?” he asked. He burped and excused himself.

  “I wanted to talk about Janice,” Marsha said.

  “I hope to God she didn’t tell you any lies about me,” Harry said. “I’ve been a hardworking man all my life. Drove sixteen-wheelers back and forth across this country so many times I lost count.”

  “I’m sure that was hard work,” Marsha said, wondering if she should have come.

  “Bet your ass,” Harry said.

  “What I was wondering,” Marsha began, “is whether Janice ever talked about my boys, David and VJ.”

  “Lots of times,” Harry said. “Right, Mary?”

  Mary nodded but didn’t say anything.

  “Did she ever remark on anything out of the ordinary about them?” There were specific questions she could have asked, but she preferred not to lead the conversation.

  “She sure did,” Harry said. “Even before she got nuts about all that religious bunk, she told us that VJ had killed his brother. She even told us that she tried to warn you but you wouldn’t listen.”

  “Janice never tried to warn me,” Marsha said, color rising in her cheeks. “And I should tell you that my son David died of cancer.”

  “Well, that’s sure different than what Janice told us,” Harry said. “She told us the kid was poisoned. Drugged and poisoned.”

  “That’s patently preposterous,” Marsha said.

  “What the hell does that mean?” Harry said.

  Marsha took a deep breath to calm herself down. She realized that she was trying to defend herself and her family before this offensive man. She knew that wasn’t the reason that she was there. “I mean to say that there was no way that my son David could have been poisoned. He died of cancer just like your daughter.”

  “We only know what we’ve been told. Right, Mary?”

  Mary nodded dutifully.

  “In fact,” Harry said, “Janice told us that she’d been drugged once too. She told us that she didn’t tell anybody because she knew no one would believe her. She told us that she got mighty careful about what she ate from then on.”

  Marsha didn’t say anything for a moment. She’d remembered the change in Janice. Overnight, she’d gotten extremely fastidious about what she ate. Marsha had always wondered what had caused the change. Apparently it had been this delusion of being drugged or poisoned.

  “Actually, we didn’t believe too much of what Janice was telling us,” Harry admitted. “Something happened inside her head when she got so religious. She even went so far as to tell us that you
r boy, VJ, or whatever his name, was evil. Like he had something to do with the devil.”

  “I can assure you that is not the case,” Marsha said. She stood up. She’d had enough.

  “It is strange that your son David and our daughter died of the same cancer,” Harry said. He rose to his feet, his face reddening with the considerable effort.

  “It was a coincidence,” Marsha agreed. “In fact, at the time it caused some concern. There was a worry that it had something to do with environment. Our home was studied extensively. I can assure you their both having it was nothing more than a tragic coincidence.”

  “Tough luck, I guess,” Harry admitted.

  “Very bad luck,” Marsha said. “And we miss Janice as we miss our son.”

  “She was all right,” Harry said. “She was a pretty good kid. But she lied a lot. She lied a lot about me.”

  “She never said anything to us about you,” Marsha said. And after a curt handshake, she was gone.

  “You sure you don’t mind?” Victor asked Louis Kaspwicz. He’d called the man at home to ask him about the discrepancy regarding his hard disk on the personal computer.

  “I don’t mind in the slightest,” Louis said. “If your hard disk has no storage space available, it means the existing storage is filled with data. There is no other explanation.”

  “But I looked at the file directory,” Victor said. “All there is listed are the operating systems files.”

  “There have to be more files,” Louis said. “Trust me.”

  “I’d hate to mess up your Saturday afternoon if it is some stupid thing,” Victor said.

  “Look, Dr. Frank,” Louis said, “I don’t mind. In fact, on a rainy day like this I’ll enjoy the excuse to get out of the house.”

  “I’d appreciate it,” Victor said.

  “Just give me directions and I’ll meet you there,” Louis said.

  Victor gave him directions, then went out into the main lab and told Robert that he was leaving but that he’d probably be back. He asked Robert about what time he’d be calling it a day. Robert said that his wife had told him dinner was to be at six so he’d be leaving about five-thirty.

  Louis was already at the house by the time Victor got there.

  “Sorry to make you wait,” Victor said as he fumbled with his keys.

  “No problem,” Louis said cheerfully. “You certainly have a beautiful house,” he added. He stomped the moisture off his shoes.

  “Thank you.” Victor led Louis upstairs to his Wang PC. “Here it is,” he said. He reached behind the electronics unit and switched the system on.

  Louis gave the computer a quick look, then lifted his narrow briefcase onto the counter top, snapping open the latches. Inside, encased in styrofoam, was an impressive array of electronic tools.

  Louis sat down in front of the unit and waited for the menu to come up. He quickly went through the same sequence that Victor had early that morning, getting the same result.

  “You were right,” Louis said. “There’s not much space left on this Winchester.” He reached over to his briefcase and unsnapped the accordion-like file area built under the lid, pulled out a floppy disk, and loaded it.

  “Luckily, I happen to have a special utility for locating hidden files,” Louis said.

  “What do you mean by hidden files?” Victor asked.

  Louis was busy with manipulating information on the screen. He spoke without looking. “It is possible to store files so that they don’t appear on any directory,” he said.

  Miraculously, data started to appear on the computer. “Here we are,” Louis said. He leaned aside so Victor could have a better view of the screen. “Any of this make sense to you?”

  Victor studied the information. “Yeah,” he said. “These are contractions for the nucleotide bases of the DNA molecule.” The screen was completely filled with vertical columns of the letters AT, TA, GC, and CG. “The A is the adenine, the T is for pyrimidine, the G is for guanine, and the C is for cytosine,” Victor explained.

  Louis advanced to the next page. The lists continued. He advanced a number of pages. The lists were interminable. “What do you make of this?” Louis asked, flipping through page after page.

  “Must be a DNA molecule or gene sequence,” Victor said, his eyes following the flashing lists as if he were watching a Ping-Pong game.

  “Well, have you seen enough of this file?” Louis asked.

  Victor nodded.

  Louis punched some information into the keyboard. Another file appeared, but it was similar to the first. “The whole hard disk could be taken up with this stuff,” Louis suggested. “You don’t remember putting this material in here?”

  “I didn’t put it in,” Victor said without elaborating. He knew that Louis was probably dying to ask where it could have come from and who was the person logging onto the Chimera mainframe last night. Victor was grateful that the man held his curiosity in check.

  For the next half hour, Louis rapidly went from file to file. All looked essentially like the first. It was like a library of DNA molecules. Then suddenly it changed.

  “Uh oh,” Louis said. He had to hold up hitting the sequence of keys that scrolled through the hidden files. What appeared on the screen was a personnel file. Louis flipped through a couple of pages. “I recognize this because I formatted it. This is a personnel file from Chimera.”

  Louis looked up at Victor, who didn’t say a word. Louis turned back to the computer and went to the next file. It was George Gephardt’s. “This stuff was pulled directly out of the mainframe,” Louis said. When Victor still did not respond, he went to the next file, then the next. There were eighteen personal files. Then came a series of accounting files with spread sheets. “I don’t recognize these,” Louis said. He looked up at Victor again. “Do you?”

  Victor shook his head in disbelief.

  Louis redirected his attention to the computer screen. “Wherever it came from, it represents a lot of money. It is a clever way to present it, though. I wonder what kind of program was used. I wouldn’t mind getting a copy of it.”

  After going through a number of pages of the accounting data, Louis went on to the next file. It was a stock portfolio of a number of small companies, all of which held Chimera stock. All in all, it represented a large portion of the Chimera stock not held by the three founders and their families.

  “What do you think this is?” Louis asked.

  “I haven’t the slightest idea,” Victor said. But there was one thing that he had a good idea about. He was going to have another talk with VJ about using the computer. If the information before him represented actual truths and wasn’t part of some elaborate fantasy computer game, the ramifications were very grave. And on top of that was the question of the deleted Hobbs and Murray files.

  “Now we’re back to more of the DNA stuff,” Louis said as the screen filled again with the lists of the nucleotide sequences. “Do you want me to go on?”

  “I don’t think that’s necessary,” said Victor. “I think I’ve seen enough. Would you mind leaving that floppy disk you’ve used to bring these files up? I’ll bring it to Chimera on Monday.”

  “Not at all,” Louis said. “In fact, this is just a copy. You can keep it if you want. I have the original at home.”

  Victor saw Louis off, holding the front door ajar until the man got in his van and drove off. Victor waved and then shut the door. Going upstairs, he made sure that VJ was not around. Back in the study, he called Marsha’s office but got the service. They didn’t know where she was, although she’d been at the hospital earlier.

  Victor put the phone down. Then he got the idea of contacting Able Protection. Maybe they could get in touch with their operative. If so, then Victor could find out where VJ was.

  But a call to Able Protection only yielded the recording. Victor was forced to leave his name and number with the request that he be called as soon as possible.

  For the next half hour, Victor paced back and
forth in the upstairs study. For the life of him, he could not understand what it was all about.

  The phone rang and Victor grabbed it. It was the grating voice of the man from Able Protection. Victor asked if it were possible to contact the man accompanying VJ.

  “All our people carry pagers,” the man told him.

  “I want to know where my son is,” Victor said.

  “I’ll call you right back.” With that, the man hung up. Five minutes later, the phone rang again. “Your son is at Chimera, Inc.,” the man said. “Pedro is at the security gate this minute if you want to talk to him.”

  Victor thanked the man. He hung up the phone and went downstairs for his coat. A few minutes later he was cutting his wheels sharply to do a U-turn in front of the house.

  After a quick drive, Victor made an acute turn into the entrance to the Chimera compound and came to an abrupt halt inches from the gatehouse barrier. He drummed his fingers expectantly on the steering wheel, waiting for the guard to raise the black and white striped gate. Instead, the man came out of the office in spite of the rain and bent down next to Victor’s window. Without hiding his irritation at being detained, Victor lowered his window.

  “Afternoon, Dr. Frank!” the guard said. He touched the brim of his hat in some kind of salute. “If you’re looking for that special security man, he’s here in the guardhouse.”

  “You mean the man from Able Protection?” Victor asked.

  “That I don’t know,” the guard said. He straightened up. “Hey, Pedro, you from Able Protection?”

  A handsome young man came to the door of the guardhouse. His hair was coal black and he sported a narrow mustache. He looked about twenty.