Runaway Heart (39 page)

     
"How about you bring him in to say he did?" Amato
responded.

     
"Your Honor, in due time, when he is able, that will happen.
As to standing, Charles Chimera and his John Doe brothers are, in fact,
chimpanzees who have been made almost human with DNA upgrades."

     
"That's it! I've heard enough. We're done." Melissa
started to rise, but it was an awkward procedure that took her a moment, so
Herman rushed on.

     
"Your Honor, I need only a few more minutes. I beg you to
listen. If you will not, then I will be forced to take this problem
elsewhere."

     
"Yeah, like where's that, Herman? The Zoo Association?"

     
"No, Your Honor, to a full judicial review."

     
"You're really asking for it." She glowered, but sat
back down.

     
"I intend to put a doctor of genetics under oath who will
explain to you that a normal chimpanzee's homology is 98.4 percent of human
DNA."

     
"Right," she shot back. "But it's not a human, so
it
has no legal standing,"
Melissa growled. "I'm so sick of
your sloppy, unorthodox behavior. When will you start practicing the law like
the rest of us?"

     
"It's a hybrid," Herman persisted. "But if, as has
been established, we're using DNA to determine the boundary line for humanity,
then at least we can probably all agree that chimpanzee DNA is extremely
close."

     
"But it's not human. So, that's it." She rose again.

     
"Your Honor, would you accept a case on behalf of a
Down's syndrome
child? Can anyone seriously posit that such a child is not human for purposes
of legal standing?"

     
"Of course—there's standing there. But a Down's syndrome
child
is
a human being."

    
 
"That's
right, Your Honor. It's human, but with DNA that is only 99.1 percent of normal
human DNA. That extra chromosome alters the DNA by nine tenths of one percent.
But Charles Chimera actually has DNA that is
closer
to a normal human
being than a Down's syndrome child. This being's human-enhanced DNA is
ninety-nine point
three
percent of a normal
Homo sapiens.
It has
just been established by this court that DNA is the proper measurement for
determining humanity. Since you just agreed you would accept a Down's syndrome
child with only 99.1 percent homology, it is the plaintiff's position that this
court cannot refuse standing to one Charles Chimera, whose DNA is two tenths of
a point closer to human homology than that of a Down's syndrome child."

     
Melissa King was on her feet looking down at Herman with her mouth
open.

     
"You can't be serious."

     
"You accepted the stipulation, Your Honor."

     
"You son of a bitch. When is the Lawyer Review Board gonna
just be done with it and jerk your license?"

     
"With all due respect, Your Honor, the court must rule. Will
you hear this case on behalf of Charles Chimera, whose DNA is closer to normal
human DNA than that of a Down's syndrome child? Or will you refuse him his
rightful access to due process provided under the Constitution of the United
States of America?"

     
She was trapped. Herman had tricked her into an impossible
situation.

     
Melissa King was furious at him and at herself, but she was damned
if she was going to hear a case with a chimpanzee as the plaintiff. She'd be an
even bigger laughingstock in the legal community than Herman Strockmire Jr.

     
So Melissa King did the only thing she could do to avoid handing
down a ruling . . . her water broke and she went into labor.

J
ack accessed the Ten-Eyck Indian
reservation Web site. The cartoon Indian with the peace pipe on the welcome
screen was probably designed before Izzy's Bel Air record career blossomed.

A map of the reservation indicated it
was, as Izzy said, way out past Indio. The exact location was in the Joshua
Tree National Forest, which sounded shady and restful, unless you realized that
Joshua trees were actually misnamed cactus plants with no leaves and covered
with thorns.

After he located the seventeen-hundred-acre
plot on a California road map, Jack bought the cheapest digital camera he could
find at Good Guys, then drove out to Van Nuys Airport and cruised around until
he found a small, oddly named charter service called Air Jordan.

     
It was run by an overweight gray-haired woman wearing Ray-Bans,
named Jordan Phoenix, which sounded to Jack like a misplaced desert monument.
Jordan—who liked to be called "Jordy"—had small planes for rent. A
few were in Jack's limited budget range. He picked a fifteen-year-old Cessna
185 at one-fifty an hour. After being assured that the plane was
"top-notch," he watched with concern as Jordy, who it now appeared
was also going to be his pilot, walked around and did a preflight check, which
consisted of rattling control surfaces, then banging her fist a few times on
the engine cowling. When she saw the look on his face she quipped, "Wakes
up the birds that nest in the carburetor." Then she got in and motioned to
the seat next to her.

     
"Okay, honey, fly your ass right on up here and drop
anchor." No doubt about it, Jordy was a pip.

     
"Contact," she bellowed in a voice that would blow the
fur off a cat. Then the Cessna burped to life.

     
Jack decided to try to break the ice. "Must be pretty
exciting, being a pilot."

     
"Not if I do it right," she deadpanned.

     
They taxied out toward the runway. Jordan keyed her mike,
identified herself as November-eight-six-eight-Charlie-Bravo, and started
talking to the Van Nuys tower. They were cleared for takeoff, and in a few
minutes they were streaking down the runway and lifting off into the Southern
California smog. The wings immediately started jitterbugging in unstable,
choppy air.

     
"I'm gonna get up over this chop at ten thousand," Jordy
shouted at him. "Air's a little thin, but I hate flying through Indian
country at standard altitudes."

     
"Indian country?" Jack yelled back, wondering if she was
talking about the Ten-Eyck reservation.

     
"Yeah, it's what we call all this airspace between here and
San Bernardino." She smiled. "Buncha dentists out here flying around
in Cherokees and Apaches. Most docs can't fly for shit. I hate it when they
park their birds in my front seat."

     
"In that case, don't worry about oxygen. Go as high as you
want, I'll hold my breath."

     
She nodded, keeping the 185 in a steep climb.

     
She was right. There were a lot of little planes. Some were flying
in circles, practicing maneuvers, others were just sightseeing.

     
Once Jordy was at altitude, the San Bernardino Flight Center
routed them in tight behind an American Eagle twin prop shuttle. After fighting
his slipstream for a few miles, Jordan keyed her mike and asked San Bernardino
Flight Control for more separation.

     
A frustrated and overworked air traffic controller came back at
her immediately: "If you want more room, Captain, push your seat
back."

     
"Asshole," she muttered.

     
There were enough comics up here to book an open-mike night at the
Comedy Store. Soon they were out over the desert past Indio and turning
southeast. Jordy called air traffic control to discontinue her flight plan. She
notified them she was going to visual flight rules and dropping to two thousand
feet.

     
"Roger, eight-six-eight-Charlie-Bravo," the traffic
controller said. "But, if you stay on that heading, in twenty miles you'll
be over a Code Sixty-one."

     
"San Bernardino Center, that's not on my map."

     
"Roger, Charlie-Bravo, this is a new directive. One month
old. Turn right at Longitude one-one-six point seven and notify Palm Desert
Flight Control. Good day."

     
She looked over at Jack.

     
"Trouble?" Jack asked, reading her look.

     
"Yeah. That place you wanna go look at is in restricted
airspace. Code Sixty-one is a military no-fly zone."

     
"How close can you get?" Jack asked.

     
"Not very."

     
They flew out toward the reservation, but before they could see
much of it Jordan banked right and flew along the perimeter of the restricted
area.

     
"This is my hold point," she said.

     
"What happens if you just do it anyway?"

     
"I'd have to trade in this Cessna for a taxicab."

     
"They'll take your license?"

     
"And feed it to me."

     
While they were flying along the perimeter a Blackhawk helicopter
suddenly appeared on their starboard side. In the open bay door of the huge
military chopper were several men dressed in black helmets and SWAT gear. In a
side door, behind a fifty-caliber machine gun, sat a waist gunner. The pilot
waved Jordan off. The two aircraft flew on the same heading only about thirty
feet apart.

     
Jack took out his digital camera and photographed the Blackhawk.
As soon as he did, one of the SWAT soldiers flipped him off. Then Jack aimed
the camera at the terrain
to the east. Somewhere out there in the desert beyond their hold
point was the Ten-Eyck Indian reservation. He took a few more shots, hoping he
could blow them up or digitally enhance them and maybe discover something.

     
Suddenly the door gunner let loose a short burst of tracers that
didn't hit the Cessna, but streaked past the nose about forty or fifty feet in
front.

     
"That's it. I'm gone." Jordan made a circle motion with
her hand, and the pilot of the Blackhawk waved back and nodded. Then she banked
the Cessna and headed back to L.A.

     
"Sorry," Jordy said. "But I ain't looking for no
fifty-caliber renovations. Not much else I can do."

     
Jack was shaken by the incident.

     
When they landed at Van Nuys there was a windowless van parked out
on the tarmac. Jordan Phoenix shut down the Cessna, and as they climbed out,
the doors of the van opened, revealing four men in plainclothes and blue
wind-breakers. They jumped onto the tarmac and headed toward the plane. Jack
recognized one of the men from the stairwell at Mrs. Zimbaldi's apartment. He
turned, looking for an escape, but two other men were already walking toward
the plane from the hangar on the right, two more appeared from behind a fuel
truck.

     
The plainclothes feds pulled out Berettas. No lasers this
time—just good, old-fashioned, Italian hardware.

     
One of the men, who was tall and lean with a dark Hispanic
complexion, spoke: "Get down on your face, please."

     
Jack assumed the position. They frisked him, but he wasn't
packing. His hands were cuffed and he was yanked quickly back up to his feet.

     
"Federal arrest," the Hispanic man said, showing a badge
to Jordan, who was standing there looking at them through her Ray-Bans, her
sun-dried complexion as expressionless as theirs.

     
"You boys can have him, but he still owes me for two hours of
flight time." Jordy was a good pilot, but pretty much worthless when it
came to backup. "Two hundred an
hour for two hours, fifteen minutes," she calculated,
adding fifty bucks to their hourly agreement.

     
Somebody reached into Jack's back pocket, pulled out his wallet,
and extracted cash. "You oughtta have a discount when your clients end up
in handcuffs," Jack groused at her as they pulled a hood over his head and
pushed him toward their van.

     
"Renting airplanes is like renting sex," Jordy said,
counting her money. "It's expensive, and someone is always keeping track
of time."

     
The case was really starting to piss him off.