Tom Hyman (35 page)

There was also a note:

Sorry you ran out. Serves me right for being such a bore.

Hope you’ll forgive me.

Best, Paul Elder

5 Anne read the note over and over. She considered calling Lexy and asking her advice, then decided she had suffered enough humiliation for one twenty-four-hour period.

: It meant what it said, she decided. No more, no less. He was obliged to return the RCD, so he had thoughtfully included a polite note with it, trying to make her feel a little less embarrassed.

i And that’s all the note was—polite. No feeling in it at all.

Surely the man wasn’t so inhibited that he couldn’t have responded with a little more affection and warmth if he had wanted to. “Best”

indeed.

He might as well have said “Sincerely yours.”

Anne tore the note up and threw it away. She decided that if he called and said he wanted to see her again, she’d see him again.

If he didn’t, she wouldn’t.

She waited for the call for many days. Every time the telephone rang, her heart lurched.

r. But the call never came.

Dr. Laura Garhardt sat stiffly at attention as Baroness von Hauser thumbed through a thick, leather-bound folder, crammed with several hundred pages of neatly printed test results, including Xrays, sonograms, genome profiles, and medical interviews. The book represented the first comprehensive report on the twenty Romanian women who had volunteered for the pilot genetics program. The report covered the first five months of their pregnancies.

Garhardt and the other doctors on the project had spent a considerable amount of time on the report. They knew from past experience how unforgiving the baroness was of sloppy work or faulty interpretations.

At the front of the book was a two-page letter, written by Garhardt and signed by all the researchers and doctors in the project, that summarized the contents of the report. The baroness read the letter carefully several times. The rest of the report—the pages and pages of details—didn’t much interest her.

She closed the book and dropped it on her desk. “So,” she said, tilting back in her chair and smiling at Garhardt. “Everything is going well.”

Garhardt nodded politely. “Yes, Baroness. Exceedingly well.”

The baroness studied Garhardt for a few moments, one hand playing idly with a gold pen, first rolling it between her fingers and then tapping it gently against her cheek. “Are all the women following your orders?”

Dr. Garhardt cleared her throat. “Yes. With a few minor exceptions.

We’ve had to remind some of them not to neglect their temperature charts and daily maternity diaries. And several of them have been casual about obeying diet restrictions. I think we have those matters under control, however.”

“Yes. You said as much in your covering note. I’m pleased to hear it.”

Garhardt said nothing more. She gripped the arms of her chair to keep her hands from betraying her nervousness.

The baroness caressed the pen in her palm. “Do you have any observations—perhaps personal or subjective—that you would like to add that are not in the report itself?”

Dr. Garhardt wrinkled her brow. “No. No, I’m sure everything important is there.”

“Any complaints?”

Garhardt caught her breath. If she had had any choice in the matter, she never would have agreed to work for the baroness.

But she didn’t have a choice. Garhardt’s father had been a prominent administrator in the former GDR’s criminal-justice system during the days of Erich Honecker’s Communist regime. Somehow the baroness had obtained a cache of secret official documents that revealed how her father had been responsible for implementing a Stasi program that coerced judges into sentencing innocent dissidents to long jail terms and placed hundreds of others in mental hospitals. Her father was still alive, living out a peaceful retirement with her mother in a small village in Saxony.

If the documents were ever made public, her parents would be destroyed.

The baroness had never overtly threatened to make use of the documents.

She didn’t have to. It was enough that Laura Garhardt knew that she possessed them. That left it up to Garhardt never to provide the baroness with any temptation to use them.

“No complaints at all, Baroness.”

“Is there anything more you want or need? Anything more in terms of supplies or personnel? Is there anything at all the project needs that we have neglected to provide?”

“Not that I know of, Baroness. We are well taken care of, thanks to the interest and attention you’ve given the program.”

This was not quite true. When the project was first getting under way, Garhardt had insisted that the genetic software, the so called Jupiter program, should be subjected to rigorous dry runs and other tests before it was tried on any human subjects. The other doctors and researchers were coming around to her point of view when the baroness intervened. Jupiter had already been tested on at least one other woman, she told them, and the results had been excellent. It would be a waste of time if they fiddled around examining something that had already proven itself. They must move ahead with the pilot program as quickly as possible.

1 Reluctantly, Laura Garhardt obeyed.

i, “I’d like another report in two months,” the baroness said. “Of course, if anything unusual comes up, I expect to be informed at once.”

“Of course.”

“And Doctor, next time don’t bind your report in leather. This is not a work of Goethe or Schiller.”

“Of course not. I’m sorry, Baroness.”

Baroness von Hauser swiveled her chair to one side and focused her attention on the forest of blinking lights on her telephone console.

She waved a hand absently toward the door without looking up. “That’s all, then.”

Dr. Garhardt muttered a barely audible “Bitte” and made her exit. In the three years that she had worked for Hauser Industries, she had probably seen the baroness less than a dozen times. And she never had been in her presence for much more than a few minutes. But each time, her fear of the woman took on additional

1 strength. If it had not been for that fear, she would have taken the opportunity the baroness had given her to add a personal observation to the report. But she had not dared. To bring up anything negative, she had learned, was to risk the baroness’s displeasure. Better to keep one’s mouth shut and stay out of trouble. Better to wait until the next full report was due. With any luck, the next two months would give Garhardt time to decide whether her observation should be made or not.

It was such a very small thing, really—a slight anomaly in one of the blood tests. The hemoglobin profiles were consistently irregular in all twenty-four fetuses. Strange. No visible deformities, though, and nothing abnormal on any of the other tests.

The doctor intended to make a thorough, detailed study of the profiles of the beta and epsilon globin genes from some sample normal pregnancies. But first she would have to locate a quantity of them.

Perhaps in two months the hemoglobin would return to normal. Doctor Garhardt certainly hoped so. She was damned if she wanted to be the one to bring any bad news about Jupiter to the baroness.

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“Rabbit needs a friend,” Genny said. She was tugging her mother in the direction of the stuffed-animal display at the F.A.O.

Schwarz toy store on Fifth Avenue.

“I thought Rabbit had quite a few friends. There must be forty stuffed animals back in your bedroom.”

Genny shook her head. “I only have thirty-five, Mommy.”

Anne laughed. “I forgot you knew how to count that high.”

“And he needs a special friend.”

“Do you have anyone particular in mind?”

Genny pointed toward an enormous stuffed brown bear. The price tag dangling from one of its paws read $850.

“No,” Anne said, very firmly. “He’s much too big. There’s no room in the apartment for him.”

“Please, please, Mommy?”

“And he’s much too expensive, as well.”

Genny pouted. “I’m going to tell Daddy to buy him, then.”

Anne sighed. Her daughter had begun playing Dalton off against her recently. Along with her other precocious habits, she was also beginning to demonstrate a talent for manipulation.

Since the apparent end of her relationship with Dr. Elder, Anne had been spending all her time with her daughter. She had also invested a lot of money in a high-end computer system so that she could continue working on Jupiter on her own. But she hadn’t yet mastered the operation of the computer itself. She was still reading the manuals and trying to make sense of it all. She needed 289 help for both the computer and the Jupiter program, but she didn’t know where to turn.

She wished she could ask Hank Ajemian for advice, but of course that would mean revealing that she had stolen the copy of Jupiter from Dalton’s safe.

She began to wish that she had never taken the damned program in the first place. Its very presence in her apartment had become a constant source of worry. It was as if she had stolen a famous piece of jewelry or art. She couldn’t menu-n Illnitr t anyone without risk.

She had called Ajemian anyway, to ask him about the pilot program in Romania. When the babies in the first trial program were born, some useful information might develop that would apply to Genny. And if there were any problems, the geneticists in Romania were far more likely to find them than Anne.

So far, Ajemian had informed her, the mothers were all doing fine.

Genny was tugging at her sleeve.

“Pick out something else,” Anne said. “How about that white bunny over there? She’s just about Rabbit’s size, too. I bet he’d like her.”

“How do you know it’s a girl, Mommy?”

“Well, I’m not sure. But she looks like one, don’t you think?”

Genny shook her head. “I already have three bunnies—Rabbit, White Tail, and Fuzzy. I want that big bear.”

“I know what,” Anne said brightly. “Why don’t we go look at dolls ?

“ Genny stamped her feet. “I hate dolls.”

“You do? How come?”

Genny put her hands on her hips and thought about it. “They aren’t real. That’s why. They’re just pretend.”

“You love that big doll that Lexy gave you, don’t you?”

“She’s not actually a doll, Mommy,” Genny corrected. “She’s a Raggedy Ann.”

Anne looked around the store to see where the dolls were located. Near the front entrance she caught sight of a man standing over by the model trains. He was about thirty-five, dressed in a

. .

nondescript gray suit and dark tie. She had seen him before. He was following them. She was sure of it.

Anne watched him. He wasn’t paying much attention to the trains. He fingered a few of them absently, then glanced in her direction. Their eyes met for an instant. He gave nothing away.

He looked past her, as if something on one of the shelves over her head had caught his interest. Then he turned away.

Anne grabbed Genny’s hand and pulled her toward the back of the store.

She’d wait him out, she decided. Just stay in the store—until it closed, if necessary. Genny wouldn’t mind. She could easily spend the entire day there without complaint. If the man was following them, he would be obliged to stay as well. If he wasn’t, he would presumably leave. Anne glanced at her watch. Three o’clock. The store closed at six.

Genny was still sulking about the big stuffed bear. She wouldn’t let her mother hold her hand. She walked, stiff-legged and grimfaced, from aisle to aisle, refusing to take any interest in anything.

“You’re the worst mommy in the whole world,” she muttered.

Anne kept her eye on the man. At one point he seemed to be leaving.

He walked to the entrance, paused, looked out, and then turned around and came back in Anne’s direction.

Damn him, Anne thought. How long was she going to have to put up with this? She walked toward the front counter. Perhaps she should report him to the management. But what could she report, really? That she thought he was following her? He hadn’t actually done anything. He hadn’t spoken to her. He hadn’t touched her. They’d think she was loony.

Anne turned away from the front counter and studied the display on some shelves to the left, trying to decide what to do.

Maybe it was best just to leave in a hurry—grab Genny, jump in a taxi, and lose him. She walked back down the aisle where she had left her daughter, moping disconsolately by the Lego sets.

Genny wasn’t there.

Anne peeked around the corner and down the next aisle. No Genny. She called out her name in a low voice. No answer.

She glanced down the other two aisles. “Genny, where are you?”

Anne searched hurriedly through the store. Genny wasn’t tall enough to be visible over the display shelves, but the man was.

She didn’t see him anywhere, either.

“Genny!”

Anne ran toward the back of the store, tripping over the foot of a young boy on the way.

She stopped. “Genny!”

No answer.

She dashed to the front of the store. Her mind felt scrambled.

“Oh no oh no oh no” rang in her head like an alarm bell. She ran out the front entrance and looked up and down the street.

No Genny.

Anne rushed back inside and collared a startled middle-aged saleslady.

“My daughter!” she screamed. “She’s gone! She’s been kidnapped!”

The woman called security. The couple of dozen customers in the store froze in place and looked around them fearfully.

“My daughter!” Anne yelled at them. “She’s gone!”

The noise level in the store increased dramatically. Customers and clerks rushed to the front and crowded around the entrance, expecting to catch a glimpse of something—a fleeing car, a police chase.

A security man appeared and asked Anne what had happened.

“He took my daughter!”

“Who did, miss? Did you see anyone?”