Next: A Novel (28 page)

Josh said nothing. He pressed the tips of his fingers against his closed eyes until he saw bright patterns. He wanted to escape. He wanted to leave this office, this company. He wanted none of this to be true.

“Mom,” he said finally. “This could be very serious.” He was thinking that he could go to jail.

“Of course it’s serious. I’m very frightened now, Josh. What’s going to happen? Am I going to lose my son?”

“I don’t know, Mom. I hope not.”

“I think there’s a chance,” she said. “Because I called up the Levines in Scarsdale. They’re already old, the two of them. Past sixty. And they sounded just fine. Helen said she was never better. George is playing a lot of golf.”

“That’s good,” he said.

“So maybe they’re okay.”

“I think so.”

“Then maybe Adam will be okay, too.”

“I really hope so, Mom. I really do.”

He got off the phone. Of course the Levines were fine. He had sent sterile saline in the spray tubes. They hadn’t gotten the gene. He wasn’t about to send his experimental genes to some people in New York he didn’t know.

And if this gave his mother hope, then fine. Keep it that way.

Because right now, Josh didn’t hold out much hope. Not for his brother. And ultimately not for himself.

He was going to have to tell Rick Diehl. But not now. Not right now.

CH049

Gail Bond’shusband, Richard, the investment banker, often worked late entertaining important clients. And none was more important than the American sitting across the table from him now: Barton Williams, the famous Cleveland investor.

“You want a surprise for your wife, Barton?” Richard Bond said. “I believe I have just the thing.”

Hunched down over the dinner table, Williams looked up with only slight interest. Barton Williams was seventy-five, and closely resembled a toad. He had a jowly, droopy face with large pores, a broad, flat nose, and bug eyes. His habit of placing his arms flat on the table and resting his chin on his fingers made him look even more like a toad. In fact, he was resting an arthritic neck, since he disliked wearing a brace. He felt it made him look old.

He could lie flat on the table, as far as Richard Bond was concerned. Williams was old enough and rich enough to do whatever he wanted, and what he had always wanted, all his life, was women. Despite age and appearance, he continued to have them in prodigious quantities, at all times of day. Richard had arranged for several women to drop by the table at the end of the meal.

They would be members of his staff, dropping off papers for him. Or old girlfriends, coming by for a kiss and an introduction. A few would be other diners, admirers of the great investor, and so dazzled they had to come and meet him.

None of this fooled Barton Williams, but it amused him, and he expected his business partners to go to a little trouble for him. When you were worth ten billion dollars, people made an effort to keep you happy. That was how it worked. He viewed it as a tribute.

Yet at this particular moment, more than anything else, Barton Williams wanted to placate his wife of forty years. For inexplicable reasons, Evelyn, at age sixty, was suddenly dissatisfied with her marriage and with Barton’s endless escapades, as she referred to them.

A present would help. “But it better be damn good,” Barton said. “She’s accustomed to everything. Villas in France, yachts in Sardinia, jewelry from Winston, chefs flown in from Rome for her dog’s birthday. That’s the problem. I can’t buy her off anymore. She’s sixty and jaded.”

“I promise you, this present is unique in the world,” Richard said. “Your wife loves animals, does she not?”

“Has her own damn zoo, right on the property.”

“And she keeps birds?”

“Christ. Must be a hundred. We got finches in the damn sun room. Chitter all day. She breeds

’em.”

“And parrots?”

“Every kind. None talk, thank God. She never had much luck with parrots.”

“Her luck is about to change.”

Barton sighed. “She doesn’t want another damn parrot.”

“She wants this one,” Richard said. “It’s the only one like it in the world.”

“I’m leaving at six tomorrow morning,” Barton grumbled.

“It’ll be waiting on your plane,” Richard said.

CH050

Rob Bellarminosmiled reassuringly. “Just ignore the cameras,” he said to the kids. They had set up in the school library of George Washington High in Silver Spring, Maryland. Three semicircles of chairs around a central chair, where Dr. Bellarmino sat while he talked to the students about the ethical issues of genetics.

The TV people had three cameras going, one at the back of the room, one at the side, close on Bellarmino, and one facing the kids, to record their expressions of fascination as they heard about the life of a working geneticist at the NIH. According to the show’s producer, it was important to show Bellarmino’s interaction with the community, and he could not have agreed more. The kids were specially picked to be bright and knowledgeable.

He thought it would be fun.

He spoke about his background and training for a few minutes, and then took questions. The first one made him pause. “Dr. Bellarmino,” a young Asian girl asked, “what is your opinion of that woman in Texas who cloned her dead cat?”

In fact, Bellarmino thought the whole dead-cat business was ridiculous. He thought it diminished the important work he and others were doing. But he couldn’t say that.

“Of course, this is a difficult, emotional situation,” Bellarmino said diplomatically. “We are all fond of our pets, but…” He hesitated. “This work was done by a California company called Genetic Savings and Clone, and it was reported that the cost was fifty thousand dollars.”

“Do you think it’s ethical to clone a pet cat?” the girl asked.

“As you know,” he said, “quite a few animals have now been cloned, including sheep, mice, dogs, and cats. So it has become rather unremarkable…One concern is that a cloned animal does not have the same life span as a normal animal.”

Another student said, “Is it ethical to pay fifty thousand dollars to clone a pet, when so many people are starving in the world?”

Bellarmino groaned inwardly. How was he going to change the subject? “I am not enthusiastic about this procedure,” he said. “But I would not go so far as to call it unethical.”

“Isn’t it unethical because it makes a climate of normality to clone a human being?”

“I don’t think cloning a pet has any effect on the issues concerning human cloning.”

“Would it be ethical to clone a human being?”

“Fortunately,” Bellarmino said, “that issue is quite far in the future. Today, I hope we might consider real contemporary issues. We have people who express concerns about genetically modified foods; we have concerns about gene therapy, and stem cells; and these are real issues.

Do any of you share that concern?” A young boy in the back raised his hand. “Yes?”

“Do you think it is possible to clone a human being?” the boy asked.

“Yes, I think it is possible. Not now, but eventually.”

“When?”

“I wouldn’t want to guess when. Are there questions on a different subject?” Another hand.

“Yes?”

“In your opinion, is human cloning unethical?”

Again, Bellarmino hesitated. He was acutely aware his response was going to be broadcast on television. And who could know how the network would edit his remarks? They’d probably do their best to make him look as bad as possible. Reporters had a distinct prejudice against people of faith. And his words also carried professional weight, because he ran a division of NIH.

“You’ve probably heard a lot about cloning, and most of it is untrue. Speaking as a scientist, I must admit I see nothing inherently wrong with cloning. I see no moral issue. It is just another genetic procedure. We already have done it with a variety of animals, as I have mentioned.

However, I also know that the procedure of cloning has a high failure rate. Many animals die before one is successfully cloned. Clearly that would be unacceptable for human beings. So, for the moment, I regard cloning as a non-problem.”

“Isn’t cloning playing God?”

“I personally wouldn’t define the issue that way,” he said. “If God has made human beings, and made the rest of the world, then clearly God has made the tools of genetic engineering. So, in that sense, God has already made genetic modification available. That is the work of God, not man. And, as always, it is up to us to use wisely what God has given us.” He felt better after this; it was one of his stock answers.

“So is cloning a wise use of what God has given us?”

Against his every instinct, he wiped his forehead with the sleeve of his jacket. He hoped they wouldn’t use that bit of film, although he was sure they would. Young kids sweat the head of NIH. “Some people think they know what God intends,” he said. “But I don’t believe I know. I don’t believe anyone can know that, except God. I think anyone who says he knows God’s intention is showing a lot of very human ego.”

He wanted to glance at his watch, but he didn’t. The kids were looking quizzical, not enraptured, as he had expected.

“There’s a great range of genetic issues,” he said. “Let’s move on.”

“Dr. Bellarmino,” said a kid to the left, “I wanted to ask about antisocial personality disorder.

I’ve read there is a gene for it, and it’s associated with violence and crime, sociopathic behavior…”

“Yes, that’s true. The gene appears in about two percent of the population around the world.”

“What about New Zealand? It is in thirty percent of the white New Zealand population, and sixty percent of the Maori population…”

“That’s been reported, but you must be careful—”

“But doesn’t that mean violence is hereditary? I mean, shouldn’t we be trying to get rid of this gene, the way we got rid of smallpox?”

Bellarmino paused. He was starting to wonder how many of these kids had parents who worked in Bethesda. He hadn’t thought to ask for the names of the kids in advance. But the questions from these kids were too knowledgeable, too relentless. Was one of his many enemies trying to discredit him, by using these kids? Was the whole network plan a trap to make him look bad?

The first step toward pushing him out of NIH? This was the information age; it was how such things were done today. Arrange to make you look bad, make you look weak. Push you to say something foolish, and then watch your words repeated over and over for the next forty-eight hours on every cable news show and in every newspaper column. Next, have congressmen call for you to retract your statements. Clucking tongues, shaking heads…How could he be so insensitive? Was he really suited for the job? Wasn’t he really a liability at his post?

And then you were out.

That was how it was done, these days.

Now Bellarmino was facing a dangerously loaded question about Maori genetics. Should he say what he really believed, and risk being accused of demeaning a downtrodden ethnic minority?

Did he mute his comments, but still risk criticism for promoting eugenics? How, actually, could he say anything at all?

He decided he couldn’t. “You know,” he said, “that’s an extremely interesting area of research, but we just don’t know enough yet to answer. Next question?”

CH051

It had been raining all day in southern Sumatra. The jungle floor was wet. The leaves were wet.

Everything was wet. The video crews from around the world had long since gone on to other assignments. Now Hagar was back with only one client: a man named Gorevitch. A famous wildlife photographer who had flown in from Tanzania.

Gorevitch had set up beneath a large ficus tree, unzipped a duffel bag, and removed a nylon mesh sling, like a hammock. He set this on the ground carefully. Then he brought out a metal case, popped it open, and assembled a rifle.

“You know that’s illegal,” Hagar said. “This is a preserve.”

“No shit.”

“If the rangers come through, you better get that stuff out of sight.”

“Not a problem.” Gorevitch charged the compressor, opened the chamber. “How big is this guy?”

“He’s a juvenile, two or three years old. Maybe thirty kilos. Probably less.”

“Okay. Ten cc’s.” Gorevitch pulled a dart out of the case, checked the level, and slipped it into the chamber. Then another. And another. He clicked the chamber closed. He said to Hagar,

“When was the last time you saw him?”

“Ten days ago.”

“Where?”

“Near here.”

“He comes back? This is his home range?”

“Seems to be.”

Gorevitch squinted down the telescopic sight. He swung it in an arc, then up to the sky, then back. Satisfied, he put the gun down.

“You got a low enough dose?”

“Don’t worry,” Gorevitch said.

“Also, if he’s high in the canopy, you can’t shoot because—”

“I said, don’t worry.” Gorevitch looked at Hagar. “I know what I’m doing. Dose is just enough to unsteady him. He’ll come down by himself, long before he collapses. We may have to track him on the ground for a while.”

“You’ve done this before?”

Gorevitch nodded.

“With orangs?”

“Chimps.”

“Chimps are different.”

“Really.” Sarcastic.

The two men fell into an uneasy silence. Gorevitch got out a video camera and tripod, and set them up. Then a long-range microphone with a one-foot dish, which he clipped to the top of the camera with a mounting pole. It made an ungainly apparatus, but effective, Hagar thought.

Gorevitch squatted on his haunches and stared out at the jungle. The men listened to the sound of the rain, and waited.

In recent weeks,the talking orangutan had faded from the media. The story had gone the way of other animal reports that didn’t prove out: that Arkansas woodpecker nobody could find again, and the six-foot Congo ape that nobody could locate despite persistent stories by natives, and the giant bat with the twelve-foot wingspan that was supposedly seen in the jungles of New Guinea.

As far as Gorevitch was concerned, the declining interest was ideal. Because when the ape was finally rediscovered, media attention would be ten times greater than it would have been otherwise.