Transhuman Page 15

  The tech running the machines was a bushy-haired kid; looked like he was still troubled with acne. Knew his business, though. He slouched in his wheeled swivel chair, earphones clamped to his head, and tweaked the knobs on his equipment to keep the sound as clear and intelligible as possible.

  Hightower’s thoughts drifted as he sat there, stuffed into the stifling booth beside the tech, listening to the man he was supposed to be finding.

  Got to check Merriwether’s phone records, he told himself. Find out who his “friend” is, the guy that sent Abramson to him. And get the Washington office to pull up a record of all Abramson’s graduate students; they’re the people who’d be helping him, no doubt.

  He wished the law weren’t so tough about hacking into e-mails. He was certain that Abramson must be calling his daughter every now and then. After a couple of messages too brief to be traced, he’d stopped phoning her. Must be using e-mail or Skype or something. I’ll need a judge’s order to go after that, and no judge is going to sign off on a case that boils down to a family squabble.

  “You hear that?” The technician’s sharp-toned voice broke into his thoughts.

  “Hear what?” Hightower asked.

  “Listen.” The kid fiddled with the knobs on his console, and Hightower heard the squawking gibberish of rewind.

  Then he heard Abramson’s voice. “I’ve been thinking, once we’re in Oregon, we could even do some genetic engineering, give Angie a full complement of the p53 gene, protect her against tumor formation.”

  Oregon! Hightower felt a flash of hope.

  Minteer’s voice replied, “If you can get us out to Oregon.”

  He strained to hear more, but their talk focused on the granddaughter’s condition. Not another word about where they were going.

  “Oregon,” Hightower muttered.

  Lifting the earphones from his head, the tech said, “That’s the only mention of a destination in all their gabble.”

  “What’s in Oregon that would attract them?”

  The kid spread his hands. “Hey, I’m only an audio geek. You’re the detective.”

  Hightower nodded. “So they went to the airport and flew to Oregon. No record of them on any of the airlines, though. We’ve checked that already.”

  “Private plane?” the tech suggested.

  “Or they rented a car at the airport and they’re driving to Oregon.”

  “With a sick kid?”

  “Hmm.” Hightower thought it over. He pushed himself up from the stool he’d been sitting on. “I’m going to check the charter plane companies. You make a copy of those CDs and send it to my office in Washington. The originals go back to Merriwether, at Nottaway Plantation.”

  Fisk Tower

  QUENTON FISK ALWAYS felt uncomfortable when he had to talk with the head of his security department.

  A veteran New York Police Department detective, Edward Novack was not a particularly large or imposing man. His job with the Fisk Corporation was mainly administrative: He oversaw the security guards and electronic systems that protected Fisk’s employees and offices.

  But there was something about Novack, something unsettling. Maybe it was the way he moved, like a lean, prowling cat, always on the balls of his feet, always ready to spring at you. He had retired from the NYPD in the midst of a scandal about police brutality against homosexuals.

  Fisk knew that Novack was capable of violence, bone-breaking, blood-letting violence. The realization made him nervous in the man’s presence.

  As he explained the Abramson situation to Novack, the security chief’s lean, hard face remained expressionless. His eyes were half closed, as if he were drifting to sleep. Yet Fisk knew the man heard every word he said. And understood.

  “So you want me to have somebody tail an FBI agent?” Novack said, in his heavy, rasping voice. It almost sounded as if he were sneering at the idea.

  “I don’t think the FBI would be willing to allow a private security employee to team up with one of their agents.”

  Novack cocked his head to one side. “If the private security employee had something to offer to the FBI…”

  “Some information, you mean,” said Fisk.

  Novack nodded.

  Fisk thought, What could I tell them? That I knowingly hid Abramson away at Lonzo’s place? That I helped and abetted a fugitive wanted for kidnapping?

  The buzz of his intercom broke into his musings.

  “Agent Hightower calling you, sir,” came his assistant’s voice.

  Novack made a grim smile. “Speak of the devil.”

  “Tell him I’m not available. I’ll call him tomorrow morning. Get his number.”

  Novack’s smile turned cynical. “Saying no to the FBI. Gutsy.”

  “I’ll talk to him,” Fisk replied, annoyed, “once I’ve got a story worked out to tell him.”

  * * *

  LUKE AND TAMARA had dinner with Shannon in her private dining room at the Bartram Labs complex.

  Shannon wants to come on to me? Luke asked himself as he spooned up some French onion soup. Barely tasting it, he realized, She’s going out on a limb to take us in like this. Is it because she’s interested in me? I’m a seventy-five-year-old man, for chrissakes. I’m not some romantic hotshot; never have been.

  But there she was, sitting at the head of the table, with Luke at her side and Tamara across the table from him. What would be going on if Tamara weren’t here? Shannon was wearing a sensibly comfortable pink sheath with a pearl necklace draped over her V-shaped neckline and more pearls at her wrists and earlobes. And perfume: some sort of musky scent.

  As the main course was being served, Shannon said very evenly, “I want to do a complete workup on you.”

  Luke sputtered into the wine he was drinking. Coughing, gagging, he croaked, “You what?”

  Tamara started to get out of her chair, but Luke waved her back down, swallowed hard, and regained his breath.

  Ignoring his distress, Shannon replied, “A complete physical. You’ve been taking telomerase accelerators for a couple of weeks now; it’s time to check on how your body is reacting.”

  “He looks younger,” Tamara said. “His reflexes are awfully good for his age.”

  “Reflexes?” Shannon snapped.

  “I slugged a security guard,” Luke explained.

  “And knocked down a former basketball star.”

  “Yeah, but you knocked him out.”

  Shannon said, “You can’t just keep on flying by the seat of your pants, Luke. You need an organized program of therapy. And I have the equipment and the people here to handle that.”

  “I’m here to make Angela well,” he began.

  “We’re doing that,” Shannon interrupted. “She’s getting the best care possible. But you need care, too, Luke. You’re running a terrible risk with those accelerators, you know.”

  “I know,” he murmured.

  Tamara said, “The accelerators could lead to tumor growth.”

  “That’s right. The fountain of youth doesn’t come for free. We’ve got to see what’s going on inside your body.”

  Luke realized he’d been avoiding such a test. He’d started using the accelerators because he couldn’t take Angie across the country without them. But he didn’t want to face up to the possibility that the side effects could kill him.

  “I’m all right,” he said. “My skin’s smoothing out. My reflexes are sharper. Even my hair is darker. No symptoms of tumors.”

  “Not yet,” said Tamara. Luke glared at her.

  Patiently, Shannon said, “Luke, you know as well as I do that most cancers don’t show any symptoms in their early stages. If you wait until you’re symptomatic it could be too late.”

  “I’m all right,” he repeated stubbornly.

  “You’re taking a complete physical tomorrow,” Shannon said.

  Tamara added, “No ifs, ands, or buts.”

  New Orleans FBI Headquarters

  MORNING WAS GRAY and cold in New
Orleans. Smoke from chimneys seemed to congeal in the still, gelid air. Hightower awoke with the sun, as usual, and quickly showered, shaved, dressed, and made his way to the local FBI office, a few blocks’ walk from the motel where he’d spent the night. Despite the chill snap in the air, he wore only his usual suede jacket.

  He picked up coffee and a greasy croissant on the way, longing for the fried bread and chilis of his native Navaho territory. The arid high desert was so different from this reclaimed swampland. Hell, he thought, half this city is below sea level.

  The local office manager had permitted Hightower to use a private cubicle that belonged to an agent who was on the road on an assignment. It was a small compartment, but at least it had a window that looked onto a parking lot, a wheeled desk chair that groaned under Hightower’s weight, and a first-rate computer/communications system, with a high-definition display screen taking up most of one wall.

  If ever I’ve seen a phony smile, Hightower thought as he looked at Quenton Fisk’s image on the screen, that’s it.

  “What can I do for you, Agent Hightower?” Fisk asked, with forced cordiality. “I’m sorry I wasn’t available yesterday, but I’m all yours this morning.”

  Hightower went straight for the jugular. “You can stop the tap dance you’ve been doing and tell me the whole truth about your relationship with Professor Abramson.”

  “Tap dance? Relationship?”

  “You didn’t tell me you’re Abramson’s sole funding source.”

  “I didn’t realize that would be important to you,” said Fisk.

  “Or that you told Lorenzo Merriwether to take in the professor, his granddaughter, and Dr. Minteer.”

  For an instant, Fisk looked shocked. Then he forced his smile again. “You’ve been poking into my phone records.”

  Hightower nodded once.

  “Don’t you need a court order for that?”

  “Never mind. What is your relationship with Professor Abramson? Where has he gone?”

  Fisk looked away for a moment, as though gathering his thoughts. Then, “My relationship, as you put it, is strictly financial. The Fisk Foundation is supporting his work. The foundation is a charitable organization and funds cutting-edge research in a number of fields.”

  “Where’s Abramson gone?”

  “I wish I knew,” Fisk answered. “He bolted out of Nottaway quite suddenly. I think he was afraid you’d discovered his whereabouts.”

  Blame the hunter for the prey’s actions, Hightower thought. Aloud, he asked, “Why did you get Merriwether to take the professor in? You knew he was a fugitive from justice.”

  “Now wait a minute,” Fisk countered. “When you first talked to me you said Abramson was suspected of kidnapping. From what the professor himself told me, it sounded like a family squabble.”

  “With a little girl’s life hanging in the balance.”

  “Exactly. Abramson convinced me that his granddaughter would die unless he could treat her. I decided to give him a safe haven for a little while and see what he could do for the child.”

  “Yet you knew he was a fugitive.”

  “He’s not a mass murderer, for God’s sake. I knew exactly where he was, if and when the time came to turn him in.”

  “But he skipped out on you.”

  “Sadly, yes.”

  “And you have no idea of where he’s gone?”

  “None whatsoever.”

  Hightower studied the man’s face on the high-def screen. The phony smile was gone. Fisk looked concerned, almost worried.

  “I’m not the only one who’s after him, am I?”

  Suddenly puzzled, Fisk asked, “What do you mean by that?”

  “Abramson’s an important investment of yours. You want him found just as much as I do.”

  “I suppose that’s right,” Fisk admitted.

  “So it’s important that you be completely forthcoming with me. Where’s he gone?”

  With a helpless shrug, Fisk said, “Believe me, if I knew I’d tell you.”

  Hightower didn’t believe the man for an instant.

  Fisk put on an earnest face and said, “Agent Hightower, I’d like to make a suggestion.”

  “What is it?”

  “I’d like to have the head of my security department work with you. He’ll have clear access to all my foundation’s files, all the records of Abramson’s work, his associates, the meetings he’s attended. That would help you, wouldn’t it?”

  “It might.”

  Nodding vigorously, Fisk said, “His name is Edward Novack. Top-flight man. I’ll tell him to fly to Washington to meet you in person.”

  Hightower thought it over swiftly. He wants to plant a spy in my operation, he realized. But if I say no, he can complain to his politician friends that I turned down his offer of help.

  Putting on his own phony smile, Hightower said, “That would be fine, Mr. Fisk. I’m in New Orleans at present, but I’ll be back in my office in Boston bright and early tomorrow morning. I’ll tell the receptionist to expect Mr. Novack. In Boston.”

  “Good.”

  “And thank you, Mr. Fisk.”

  Hightower cut the connection, thinking about the tribal wisdom of his people, and the old days when white men gave blankets freely to the red men. Blankets that were infected with smallpox, of course.

  Bartram Laboratories

  SHANNON WENT WITH Luke every step of the way through his physical exam. While Tamara stayed with Angela, Shannon led Luke to the basement of the clinic and a set of rooms that varied from a mini-gymnasium to the MRI lab where Angela’s brain scans had been done.

  Luke submitted to stress tests, jogging along on the treadmill, and gritted his teeth when a nurse took a blood sample. Two vials’ worth. Then he stripped down to his skivvies and an MD poked and prodded him from his scalp to the soles of his feet.

  The doctor was a young man, totally unembarrassed when he asked Luke to drop his drawers and bend over the examining table.

  Prostate exam, Luke knew. Painless but humiliating.

  He looked across the room at Shannon, who gave him an impish smile. “I’ll wait outside,” she said, before Luke could ask her to leave.

  But as she opened the door, she said, straight-faced, “Don’t take too long.” Then she broke into a giggle as she left the room.

  Finally Luke spent nearly an hour in the cavernous MRI machine, as the table he lay upon slowly slid through the tunnel while the machine took images of his innards.

  At last, dressed and on his feet once again, he stepped out into the area’s little waiting room. Shannon was the only person there. She immediately popped to her feet.

  “Have you been sitting out here all this time?” Luke asked her.

  “Of course not,” she replied. “They called me when they were finishing up with you.”

  “Well, they have enough data on me now to keep them busy for a few hours. I’m going upstairs to see how Angela is doing.”

  “It’s past one o’clock. Don’t you want some lunch?”

  “After I look in on Angie.”

  “Dr. Minteer’s with your granddaughter,” Shannon said, with a slight edge in her voice. “Come on, Luke, let’s have a bite of lunch.”

  He spied the telephone on the corner table. “Let me call her.”

  “Dr. Minteer?”

  “Angie.”

  Luke steered clear of using his cell phone. Might be traced, he thought. Over the past few days he’d agonized over letting Angie call her mother, back in Massachusetts. How to get a message to Norrie without the freaking FBI tracing it back to where I am? He’d come to the conclusion that he’d have Angie make a CD voice recording, send it by FedEx to Van McAllister in Philadelphia, and have Van forward it to Norrie and Del. Van will do that for me. He can just drop the package in a FedEx depository someplace; that way it won’t be traced back to him. Or me.

  Tamara picked up the phone in Angie’s room.

  “How’s she doing?” Luke asked.
<
br />   “Not bad,” came Tamara’s tawny voice. “She’s doing a crossword puzzle. Wait a minute…”

  Angela’s higher-pitched voice came through. “Hi, Grandpa.”

  “Hello, Angel. How’re you feeling?”

  “Okay, sort of.”

  “Sort of?”

  “My back hurts. Just a little.”

  “Maybe you need to walk a bit, get some exercise.”

  “I guess.”

  “Is your wrist bothering you?”

  “No. Tamara says the cast can come off in another two days.”

  “That’s wonderful,” Luke said. “Put Tamara back on, will you, honey.”

  Tamara agreed that a little exercise would be helpful. “But not too much. She’s pretty frail, still.”

  “I know,” said Luke. He had though about sending a DVD to his daughter but immediately realized that one look at Angela’s skeletal condition would send Norrie into convulsions. A CD recording of her voice would be enough, he thought.

  Angela came back on the line. “Can I go outside, Grandpa?”

  “It’s pretty chilly out there,” he said.

  “I’ll dress warm. I’d like to go outside. I’m tired of staying in this room.”

  “Okay. You ask Tamara about it. She’s your doctor. She knows what’s best for you.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Love you, Angel.”

  “Love you, too, Grandpa.”

  Luke hung up and allowed Shannon to lead him to her private dining room.

  * * *

  BEFORE LEAVING THE FBI office to go to the airport, Hightower started calling the private air services in Baton Rouge, looking for a flight Abramson might have chartered. The second company on his alphabetically arranged list was Bayou Air Services.

  A young woman answered his call. Once Hightower identified himself as an FBI agent, she bucked his call to the office manager.

  “Sir,” the man asked politely, “no offense, but how do I know you’re really from the FBI?”

  Hightower sighed inwardly. Can’t blame the guy for being careful.

  “Call the New Orleans FBI office and ask for Agent Hightower,” he said. Then he hung up and waited.

  It took nearly ten minutes, but at last his phone rang. The Bayou Air Services manager was on the line.