Mutation

by Robin Cook

  Marsha stood up, searching for words.

  “Mrs. Frank!” Mary said, shaking her hand with enthusiasm. “I’ve been looking forward to seeing you. I thought I’d have to wait for at least another year. How are you?”

  “Fine, I guess,” Marsha said.

  “I thought you ladies would enjoy chatting,” said VJ. “I’ll be leaving this door ajar; if you’re hungry or thirsty, just let one of Martinez’s people know.”

  “Thank you,” Mary said. “Isn’t he wonderful?” she said to Marsha after he was gone.

  “He’s unique,” Marsha said. “How did you get here?”

  “It’s a surprise, isn’t it?” Mary said. “Well, it surprised me too, at the time. I’ll tell you how it happened.”

  “What next?” Victor asked. Colleen was sitting in her usual spot, directly across from him. Jorge was still back on the couch, lounging comfortably. Colleen shuffled through her papers and messages. “I think that does it for now. Anything you want me to do?” She rotated her eyes toward Jorge meaningfully.

  “Nope,” Victor said as he handed over the last document he had signed. “I’ll be heading home. If there are any problems, call me there.”

  After a quick glance at her watch, Colleen looked back at Victor. “Is everything all right?” He’d been acting strangely ever since he’d returned with the Chimera security guard in tow.

  “Everything is just hunky-dory,” he said, slipping his pen inside his top drawer.

  Colleen looked at her boss of seven years. He’d never used that term before. She stood up, gave Jorge a dirty look, and left the room.

  “Time to go,” Victor said to Jorge.

  Jorge pulled himself up from the couch. “We going back to the lab?” he asked in his heavy accent.

  “I’m going home,” Victor said, getting his coat. “I don’t know where you’re going.”

  “I’m with you, friend.”

  Victor was curious if there would be any troubles as he tried to drive off the site. But the guard at the gate saluted as usual. The fact that a Chimera guard was accompanying him drew no comment from the man stationed at the gate.

  As they were crossing the Merrimack, Jorge reached over and turned on the radio. He searched for and found a Spanish station. Then he turned up the sound to nearly deafening levels, snapping his fingers to the beat.

  It was clear to Victor that Jorge was his first hurdle. As he drove up the drive and rounded the house he began to think of his alternatives. There was a root cellar below the barn with a stout door Victor felt he could secure. The problem was luring the man into it.

  As they got out of the car, Victor let the garage door down, wondering if he could sneak up on Jorge and bop him on the head just as he’d been hit when he’d first stumbled onto VJ’s lab. Victor opened the door into the family room and left it open for Jorge, who insisted on walking behind.

  Victor took off his coat and draped it over the couch. Being a realist, he decided he couldn’t hit the man. He knew he’d hit him either too softly or too hard, and either would be a disaster. He’d have to try something else. But what?

  Victor was at a loss until he used the downstairs bathroom. Spotting a bottle of aspirin in the medicine cabinet, he remembered the old doctor’s bag he’d been given as a fourth-year medical student. He’d used it all the way through his training and, as far as he could remember, it was still filled with a variety of commonly prescribed drugs.

  Emerging from the bathroom, Victor found Jorge in front of the family room TV, flipping the channels aimlessly. Victor went upstairs. Unfortunately, Jorge followed. But in the upstairs study, Victor again got him interested in the television. Victor went into the closet and found the black bag.

  Taking a handful of Seconal, Valium, and Dalmane, Victor put the bag back, slipping the pills and capsules into his pocket. When he backed out into the room, he discovered that Jorge had found the Spanish cable station.

  “I usually have a drink when I get home,” Victor said. “Can I offer you anything?”

  “What do you have?” Jorge asked without taking his eyes from the TV.

  “Just about anything,” Victor said. “How about I make up some margaritas?”

  “What are margaritas?” Jorge asked.

  The question surprised Victor; he had thought margaritas were a popular South American drink. Maybe they were more Mexican than South American. He told Jorge what was in them.

  “I’ll have whatever you have,” Jorge said.

  Victor went down to the kitchen. Jorge followed, going back to the TV in the family room. Victor got out all the ingredients, including the salt. He made the drinks in a small glass pitcher, and, making sure that Jorge wasn’t paying attention, opened each of the capsules and poured the contents into the concoction. The Valium went in as is. There was still some sediment on the bottom even after Victor had vigorously stirred the mixture, so he put it on the blender for a moment. Then he held the pitcher up to the light. It looked fine. Victor estimated there was enough knockout power in the concoction to take someone through abdominal surgery without stirring.

  Victor took a tiny sip. It had a bitter aftertaste, but if Jorge had never had a margarita, he wouldn’t know the difference. Victor then put the salt around the rim of the glasses. He made his own drink out of pure lemon juice. When he was ready, he carried the two poured drinks and the pitcher over to the coffee table.

  Jorge took his drink without taking his eyes from the TV. Victor sat back and watched it himself. Some kind of soap opera was on the tube. Victor didn’t understand Spanish, but he got the drift quickly enough.

  Out of the corner of his eye, he watched Jorge swallow his drink, then lean forward and pour himself some more. Victor was pleased he was enjoying it so much. The first sign of an effect came quickly enough: Jorge began to blink a lot. He couldn’t focus on the TV. Finally he looked over at Victor, trying to focus as best he could. The alcohol must have carried the drugs into his system efficiently enough. Jorge had barely touched his second glass and he could barely keep his eyes open.

  All of a sudden, Jorge tried to get to his feet. He must have realized what was happening because he threw his glass across the room. Victor put his own glass down and grabbed Jorge as he tried to dial the phone. Jorge even attempted to pull out his knife, but his movements were already too uncoordinated and slow. Victor easily disarmed him. In another minute, Jorge was out cold. Victor laid his limp body on the couch. He got some parenteral Valium he kept upstairs and administered the man ten milligrams intramuscularly as a backup. Then he dragged his body across the courtyard and down alongside the barn. He got him into the root cellar and covered him with old blankets and rags to keep his body temperature steady. Then he locked the door with an old padlock.

  Returning to the house, Victor enjoyed his sense of accomplishment, and he thought he had the luxury of time to think of the next step. But as he came through the door, the phone rang. Its ringing scared him into wondering if someone were calling Jorge or if Jorge was supposed to check in now and then. Victor didn’t answer the phone. Instead, he put on his coat and went out to the car. Without coming up with another idea, he decided to go to the police.

  The police station was in the corner of the municipal green. It was a two-story brick structure with a pair of ornate brass post lamps topped with blue glass spheres. Victor pulled up to the front and parked in the visitor parking area. When he’d left the house, he’d felt good about having finally made a decision. He was looking forward to dumping the whole mess into somebody else’s lap. But as he climbed the front steps between the two spheres, he became less certain about going to the police.

  Victor hesitated just outside the front door. His biggest worry was Marsha, but there were other worries as well. Just as VJ had said, the police probably couldn’t do a whole lot, and VJ would be out on the street. The legal system couldn’t even handle simple punks, what would it do with a ten-year-old with the intelligence of two Einsteins put tog
ether?

  Victor was still debating with himself whether to go in or not when the door to the police station opened and Sergeant Cerullo came barging out, bumping into Victor.

  Cerullo juggled his hat, which had been jarred from his head, then excused himself vehemently before he recognized Victor. “Dr. Frank!” he said. He apologized again, then asked, “What brings you into town?”

  Victor tried to think of something that sounded reasonable but he couldn’t. The truth was too much in his mind. “I have a problem. Can I talk to you?”

  “Geez, I’m sorry,” Cerullo said. “I’m on dinner break. We gotta eat when we can. But Murphy is in at the desk. He’ll help you. When I get back from supper, I’ll make sure they treated you right. Take care.”

  Cerullo gave Victor’s arm a friendly punch, then pulled the door open for him. Whether he wanted to or not, Victor found himself inside.

  “Hey, Murphy!” Cerullo called. His foot held the door open. “This here is Dr. Frank. He’s a friend of mine. You treat him good, understand?”

  Murphy was a beefy, red-faced, freckled Irish cop whose father had been a cop and whose father’s father had been a cop. He squinted at Victor through heavy bifocals. “I’ll be with you in a minute,” he said. “Take a seat.” He pointed with his pencil to a stained and scarred oak bench, then went back to a form he was laboriously filling out.

  Sitting where he was advised, Victor’s mind went over the conversation he was about to have with Officer Murphy. He could see himself telling the policeman that he has a son who is an utter genius and who is growing a race of retarded workers in glass jars and who has killed people to protect a secret lab he built by blackmailing embezzlers in his father’s company. The mere fact of putting the situation into words convinced Victor that no one would believe him. And even if someone did, what would happen? There would be no way to associate VJ with any of the deaths. It was all circumstantial. As far as the lab equipment was concerned, it wasn’t stolen, at least not by VJ. As far as the cocaine was concerned, the poor kid was coerced by a foreign drug lord.

  Victor bit his lower lip. Murphy was still struggling with the form, holding the pencil in his meaty hand, his tongue slightly protruding from his mouth. He didn’t look up so Victor continued his daydream. He could see VJ shuffled through the legal system and out the back door. He’d have his fully modern lab up and running with a capability of almost anything. And VJ had already proven his willingness to eliminate those who dared to stand in his way. Victor wondered how long he and Marsha would live under those circumstances.

  With a sense of depression that bordered on tears, Victor had to admit to himself that his experiment had been too successful. As Marsha had said, he hadn’t considered the ramifications of success. He’d been too overwhelmed with the excitement of doing it to think of the result. VJ was more than he’d bargained for, and with the constitutional constraints of law enforcement, the social system was ill-equipped to deal with an alien like VJ. It was as if he were from another planet.

  “Okay,” Murphy said as he tossed his form into a wire mesh basket on the corner of his desk. “What can we do for you, Dr. Frank?” He cracked his knuckles after the strain of holding the pencil.

  Without much confidence, Victor got up and walked over to the duty desk. Murphy regarded him with his blue eyes. His shirt collar appeared too tight and the skin of his neck hung over it.

  “Well, watcha got, Doc?” Murphy asked, leaning back in his chair. He had large heavy arms, and he looked like just the kind of guy you’d like to have arrive if kids were stealing your hubcaps or removing your tape deck.

  “I have a problem with my son,” Victor began. “We found out that he’d been skipping school to—”

  “Excuse me, Doc,” Murphy said. “Shouldn’t you be talking to a social worker, somebody like that?”

  “I’m afraid the situation is beyond the ken of a social worker,” Victor said. “My son has decided to associate with criminal elements and—”

  “Excuse me for interrupting again, Doc,” Murphy said. “Maybe I should have said psychologist. How old is your boy?”

  “He’s ten,” Victor said. “But he is—”

  “I have to tell you that we have never gotten a call about him. What’s his name?”

  “VJ,” Victor said. “I know that—”

  “Before you go any further,” Murphy said, “I have to tell you that we have a lot of trouble dealing with juveniles. I’m trying to be helpful. If your son had done something really bad, like expose himself in the park or break into one of the widows’ houses, maybe it would be worth involving us. Otherwise I think a psychologist and maybe some old-fashioned discipline would be best. You get my drift?”

  “Yeah,” Victor said. “I think you are entirely right. Thanks for your time.”

  “Not at all, Doc,” Murphy said. “I’m being straight with you since you’re a friend of Cerullo’s.”

  “I appreciate it,” Victor said as he backed away from the desk. Then he turned and fled to his car. Once inside his car, Victor felt a tremendous panic. All of a sudden he realized that he alone had to deal with VJ. It was to be father against son, creator against creature. The comprehension brought forth a feeling of nausea that rose up into Victor’s throat. He opened the car door, but by shuddering he was able to dispel the nausea without vomiting. He closed the car door and leaned his forehead against the steering wheel. He was drenched in sudden sweat.

  From Old Testament studies as a child, the plight of Abraham came to Victor. But he knew there were two huge differences. God wasn’t about to intervene in this instance, and Victor knew that he could not kill his son with his hands. But it was becoming progressively clear that it would be VJ or Victor.

  Then, of course, there was the problem of Marsha. How was he to get her out of the lab? Another wave of panic settled over Victor. He knew that he had to act quickly before VJ’s intelligence could become a factor. Besides, Victor knew that if he didn’t act quickly, he might lose his nerve and commitment.

  Victor started the car and drove home by reflex as his mind struggled with coming up with some kind of plan. When he arrived at home, he first went to the root cellar and checked Jorge. He was sleeping like a baby, comfy and cozy beneath his mound of blankets and rags. Victor filled an empty wine bottle with water and left it by the man’s head.

  Coming into the house, the phone again frightened Victor. Victor looked at it and debated. What if it were Marsha? As it started its fourth ring, Victor snatched up the receiver. He said hello timidly, and for good reason. The voice on the other end was a man’s voice with a heavy Spanish accent. He asked for Jorge.

  Victor’s mind momentarily went blank. The voice asked for Jorge again, a bit more insistently.

  “He’s in the john,” Victor managed.

  Without understanding the Spanish, Victor could tell there was no comprehension. “Toilet!” Victor shouted. “He is in the toilet!”

  “Okay,” the man said.

  Victor hung up the phone. Another wave of panic spread through his body like a bolt of electricity. Time was pressing in on Victor like a runaway train approaching a precipice. Jorge could only be in the john for so long before an army would be sent out like the one that visited Gephardt’s home.

  Victor pounded his hand repeatedly on the counter top. He hoped that the violence of the act would shock him into getting hold of himself so that he could think. He had to come up with a plan.

  Fire was Victor’s first thought. After all, the clock tower building was ancient and the timber dry. He wanted to come up with some sort of cataclysmic event that would get rid of the entire mess in one fell swoop. But the problem with fire was that it could be extinguished. Half a job would be worse than nothing because then Victor would face VJ’s wrath, backed up by Martinez’s muscle.

  An explosion was a much better idea, Victor decided upon reflection. But how to pull it off? Victor was certain he could rig a small explosive device, but cert
ainly not one capable of demolishing the entire building.

  He’d think of something, but first he had to get Marsha out. Going into his study, Victor took out the photocopies he’d made when he had been searching for a way into the building’s basement. He hoped he might get Marsha out through one of the tunnels. But from studying the floor plans, it immediately became clear that none of the tunnels entered the clock tower building anywhere near the living quarters where she was being held. He folded the plans and put them in his pocket.

  The phone rang again, further jangling Victor’s frayed nerves. Victor didn’t answer a second time. He knew he had to get out of the house. VJ or the Martinez gang were sure to get suspicious if Jorge remained incommunicado for long. Who could tell when they might show up to check for themselves?

  It was well past dark now, as Victor pulled out of the garage. He turned his lights on and headed for Chimera, praying to God he might come up with some sort of strategy for getting Marsha out and ridding the world of this Pandora’s box of his own creation.

  Victor suddenly jammed on his brakes, bringing his car to a screeching halt at the side of the road. Almost miraculously, a plan began to form in his mind. The details began to fall into place. “It might work,” he said through clenched teeth. Taking his foot from the brake, he stomped on the accelerator and the car leaped ahead.

  Victor could barely contain himself as he went through the rigmarole of gaining entry to Chimera. Once in, he drove directly to the building housing his lab and parked right in front of the door. Because of the late hour, the structure was deserted and locked. Victor fumbled with his keys and unlocked the door. When he got into his lab, he forced himself to stop for a moment to calm down. He sat down in a chair, closed his eyes, and tried to relax every muscle in his body. Gradually, his heart rate began to slow. Victor knew that to accomplish the first part of his plan he needed his wits about him. He needed a steady hand.

  Victor had all the things he needed in the lab. He had plenty of glycerin and both sulfuric and nitric acids. He also had a closed vessel with cooling ports. For the first time in his life, all the hours he’d spent in chemistry lab in college paid off. With ease he set up a system for the nitrification of the glycerin. While that was in progress, he prepared the neutralization vat. By far the most critical stage was carried out with an electrical drying apparatus which he set up under a ventilation hood.