Callie and I are quiet a minute. Then she says, “I don’t understand how getting Rachel’s mother sober will help you save Rachel.”
“It won’t. Unless her blood contains the gene.”
Callie smiles. “Has she never given blood either?”
“Obviously not. Or if she did, it wasn’t picked up by the government’s computers.”
“Or maybe she wasn’t a match.”
“Also possible,” I say.
Callie frowns. “If Plan B fails, what’s left?”
“I’ll have to offer them something so politically valuable, they’ll be willing to walk away from a cure for the Spanish Flu.”
“What could possibly be that valuable to them?”
“I don’t know. What if I bring them Bin Laden?”
“Excuse me?”
“I know it sounds desperate…”
“Crazy, it what it sounds. Tell me you don’t know where he’s hiding!”
“Of course not. But how hard could it be?”
“Are you shitting me?”
“Look, I haven’t discarded Plan B yet.”
“How can I help you?” Callie says. “With Plan B, that is.”
“I’ll handle it from here. I’ll have Lou get you back to L.A. so you can pick up your car.”
“I don’t mind staying.”
“I know, and I appreciate it. But for now, all I can do is wait for Sherry’s blood tests to come back.”
“Doc Howard?”
“Yup.”
“And of course, his computers won’t be linked to a different branch of the government.”
“Darwin would never allow it.”
“Well, I hope it works. If it doesn’t, are you still going to kill Roger and his family?”
“What type of hit man would I be if I didn’t?”
41.
For the next three days I’m on Roger Asprin like his shadow. The only breaks I take are to check on Nadine, who has been released and is back in Rachel’s apartment. At night, in his hotel room, Roger and I talk. He’s a decent guy who loves his wife and kids. I feel terrible that his wife is cheating on him, but it’s not my place to tell him about it. On the other hand, Roger’s being very forthright with me, hoping, I assume, that if we’re friends, I’ll let his family go. On the third night, I ask, “Tell me how this harvesting works.”
Roger looks up from the notes he’d been studying and says, “Rachel’s eggs?”
I nod.
“It involves in vitro fertilization. Now that she’s given her first egg, they’ll administer a series of fertility drugs to stimulate her ovaries to produce a number of eggs at the same time. Removing the eggs from her ovaries will require minor surgery.”
“It’s unnatural.”
“Everything about this science is unnatural,” Roger says.
“Who fertilizes the eggs? A sperm donor? Who carries the babies to term? A surrogate?”
“You’re not going to like this.”
“Say it anyway.”
“Since Sam is Rachel’s husband, they’ll mix his sperm with her eggs in the hospital’s laboratory. If embryos develop, they’ll be grown in a lab dish until one or more are placed into the uterus of the surrogate.”
“The babies would belong to the surrogate, though,” I say.
“Under normal circumstances, they would. But in this case, they’ll belong to the government, though I expect Rachel and Sam will be allowed to raise them and keep them, after the synthetic gene is created.”
Before I have a chance to comment, my cell phone rings. Doc Howard says, “I’m not sure what we’re looking for, but you were right about the blood tests.”
“How’s that?”
“They show substantial contamination.”
“All three?”
“All three.”
“Can your fax be traced?”
“No, of course not.”
“Then send them to me.”
“Where?”
“I don’t officially have a room here, so fax them to Roger Asprin.” I give him the name and phone number of the hotel. Moments later, Roger’s phone rings. I tell the front desk lady I’m sending Donovan Creed down to pick it up. The first thing I do is check to make sure there’s no phone number or point of origin on the pages. Once satisfied, I go back to Roger’s room and hand him one of the pages.
“Where did you get this?” he says. There’s alarm in his voice. Or maybe it’s excitement.
“Is it a match?” I say.
“It’s Rachel’s blood work,” Roger says.
“There are two more,” I say, handing him the other results.
“Who gave you these?”
“A new donor.”
“This must be a trick of some sort.”
“It’s no trick,” I say. “It’s Plan B.”
“What’s Plan B?”
“These blood tests came from Rachel’s mother.”
“Rachel’s parents are deceased. We checked. And there are no siblings.”
“The papers in your hand suggest otherwise. Anyway, I’m willing to exchange her for Rachel.”
“What?”
“You need the gene, Rachel’s mother has it. I’ll trade you the mom for the daughter.”
“She’d be willing to do that?”
“Who gives a shit? I can deliver her. That’s all you need to know.”
Roger shakes his head. “It won’t work.”
“Why not?”
“Because they’ll want both of them. They won’t give one up for the other, especially not the daughter for the mother. Her mother is almost certainly too old to produce eggs.”
“True.”
Roger says, “You must have realized that all along. I mean, surely you didn’t think we’d accept such a trade.”
“I did and still do.”
“It won’t work. And now that we know about Rachel’s mother, it’ll be impossible for you to hide her.”
“I don’t need to hide her.”
“What do you mean?”
“Plan B isn’t just about trading Rachel for her mom. It’s about keeping her in the U.S.A. You might have Rachel, but if you refuse to trade, I’ll sell her mother to the highest bidding enemy. Who knows what type of mutant virus they might be able to produce and unleash on the world.”
“You wouldn’t do that.”
“I would and I will. So here’s Plan B: I let you live, let your family live, and trade you Rachel’s mom for Rachel. Which means our government, and not our enemies, will have Rachel’s mom. In addition, I’ll put the lid on the world-wide announcement I’m prepared to make about what’s going on at Mount Weather. Now that I have proof of a genetic code, the world will take me seriously.”
“You don’t understand. We need Rachel’s eggs.”
“You can keep her long enough to get one more.”
“We’ll want at least a dozen embryos.”
“You’ve already got one.”
“We have an egg, Donovan. Not an embryo.”
“I’ll personally deliver her eggs to you until you get a dozen embryos. After you let her go. On one condition.”
“What’s that?”
“You have to keep Sam in Area B for the rest of his life. So he, along with his mother-in-law, can care for his children. I’m sure the children will benefit from having not only their father, but their grandmother as well.”
Despite the gravity of the discussion, Roger had to smile. “You’d stick that poor man in a hole with his mother-in-law for the rest of his life? After removing his wife?”
I shrugged. “What do you think?”
42.
It makes sense to let Rachel stay underground long enough to produce a few eggs for the scientists. After all, Sherry Cherry will be in no condition to travel for at least a couple of months. I know the government won’t want this deal, but Roger will be very persuasive that it’s a good one. I’m counting on him to make a passionate argument for the deal, since everyone he loves will die if he doesn’t.
43.
Some people might question what kind of person would kidnap Rachel’s mother and force her to live in an underground hole for years and possibly the rest of her life to be a guinea pig for science. The answer is, I’m the type who’d do that, and I’d do it without hesitation. I’m not happy about the idea of Rachel’s kids being imprisoned for the next ten years or more, but I don’t know them, and apparently they’ll be Sam and Rachel’s kids, or the government’s, so I’ll have to deal with it.
44.
It takes eight days before the deal is struck, during which time Sherry Cherry’s blood work results are passed around the scientific community like panties in a prison yard. Seven of the days were spent trying to figure out where I’m hiding Sherry, and whether or not they can kill me before I turn her over to some radical enemy group. Roger was right, I’d never do that, but over the years I’ve developed a reputation with the government that leads them to believe there isn’t anything I wouldn’t do.
45.
In the end, I don’t get everything I want, but I do get Rachel back.
In six months.
Roger was right about Uncle Sam wanting at least a dozen embryos, and for some reason, they didn’t trust me to deliver the balance of them. I agreed to let them harvest all the eggs they can for the next six months, and that should give them enough to work with. In the meantime, I’m certain a genius like Sam could cut the ten-year time table for creating the synthetic gene to two or three. He’ll have the built in motivation of wanting to escape from the hole. Six hundred thousand square feet of living space will seem awfully small after a few years of living with his mother-in-law!
That’s the other part I didn’t get in the bargain. They refuse to hold Sam against his will for the rest of his life. They also refuse to deny him access to Rachel, which is the part that upsets me the most. But they do allow me to call her once a week, to keep her spirits lifted.
The first time I called she said, “I have no idea who you are.” Then she hung up. The next week she said, “I was just kidding.” Then she hung up. I can’t wait to hear what she says next week when I call. But that’s Rachel, ever unpredictable, still keeping me off my game.
46.
I’m not thrilled about what’s going on in Area B, but I’m glad to know dedicated scientists like Roger are working day and night to protect the world from the Spanish Flu. I hate to wait six months to hold Rachel in my arms, but I know the government will take good care of her. I expect they’ll even provide a qualified therapist to work on her mental health.
The six months gives Sherry plenty of time to get better, too. I’m pretty sure Rachel will be upset when she learns I stuck her mother in the hole for however many years she’ll have to stay there, but she won’t know about it until Sam gets out and tells her. By then, maybe her mother will also be released, and she’ll be clean and sober to boot. Rachel might end up having a relationship with her mother after all, in which case I could come out of this whole situation smelling like a rose.
Of course, I had to clear it with Darwin. There’s no way I could keep Sherry Cherry’s whereabouts a secret without his help. In return, he expects me to go back to work for him full-time, killing suspected terrorists for Uncle Sam. I’m willing to do that, since I miss the excitement. Not to mention it’s what I do best.
Now that I’ve got my deal, the first order of business is to pay off Doc Howard and get the code, so I can protect my brain in case Darwin decides to renege on our deal.
It will all work out.
Roger’s happy. He got his family back. He was thrilled to learn that Bernard’s leg is still attached to his body. That bed with a hole in it has gotten a lot of use these past few weeks.
Back at Sensory, Doc Howard and I re-program the chip. Then I re-program it again, on my own. Then Lou and I meet to discuss Sherry Cherry.
“In a few months not only will Sherry be drug-free for the first time in twenty years, she also gets the opportunity to watch her grandchildren grow up,” I say, putting a positive spin on things.
“Lucky Sam,” Lou says, chuckling.
“Maybe they’ll bond,” I say.
The next day I escort Jane and Bernard—still sedated—back to L.A. Roger helps me get them in his house, and I leave it to him to come up with an explanation for what’s happened to them over the past ten days.
I get a hotel room on the beach in Santa Monica and take two full days to recharge my batteries. Then I order a jet to fly me to New York City for my date with Miranda. On the way there, I call Billy “the Kid” King.
“I’m on my way to New York,” I say, cheerfully.
“I’m carrying a gun,” he says.
“What kind?”
“Smith & Wesson, .357 Magnum.”
“The four-inch?”
“I don’t know. Whatever it is.”
“Well, I think you’ve made a good choice,” I say.
“Yeah, why’s that?”
“Revolvers are simple. They don’t jam, so they’re reliable. They’re small enough to carry, powerful enough to stop a man. Make sure you’ve got it with you when I see you.”
“Why?”
“I can always use another gun in my collection.”
There is dead silence on the phone.
“Billy? Are you still on the line?”
In a very small voice, Billy says, “How can I make this stop?”
“I thought you’d welcome the opportunity to see me again. Prove to your friends I was lucky the first time.”
“You weren’t lucky. I just want to be left alone.”
I think about it a minute.
“You really want me out of your life?”
“More than anything.”
“Miranda’s trying to put herself through school.”
“So?”
“If you write her a check to cover her next semester, I’ll leave you alone.”
“I can’t write a check to a hooker! What if she takes it to the police? Isn’t that what happened to Jerry Springer? I’d lose my broker’s license!”
“You make a good point. Pay her in cash. Fifty grand.”
“What? That’s insane!”
“No, seriously. Tuition, books, study materials—I don’t know how parents do it these days. Student loans, I guess. But Miranda’s trying to avoid all that.”
“By shaking me down.”
“You’re the one that punched her, Billy.”
“We were being playful. Things got out of hand.”
“Right.”
We were quiet a moment. Then I said, “So, you want me to pick it up personally?”
“Can we do it another way?”
“You know Guy at the gym? Z’s friend?”
“Yeah.”
“Put the cash in a duffle and give it to him.”
“I don’t want the guys in the gym to know about this.”
“That makes sense. Tell you what. I’m staying at the Pierre. Put the cash in a box, wrap it like a birthday present, and leave it at the front desk for me.”
“How do I know you’ll give it to the hooker?”
“Does it really matter?”
“What if you take the money and claim I never brought it?”