The Athena Factor (36 page)

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Authors: W. Michael Gear

BOOK: The Athena Factor
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He gave her a sheepish sidelong look. “I'm afraid some of our people panicked.”
“Panicked? That's an understatement. Do you know what you just unleashed? People are going to miss me. That means federal as well as local police involvement. Hank and
his little band of friends are going to be at the center of a hurricane.” They stepped through a bulkhead and took a right into a wider companionway. She glanced over her shoulder, aware of the lurking presence of the guards. They watched her with flat brown eyes, faces expressionless.
“Nothing we can't make amends for,” he said hopefully. “I really do apologize. We'll see what happens, and it's currently under discussion, but I'm sure we can reach some agreement that will be mutually acceptable.”
Was he a lunatic? Or just plain nuts? “Gregor, you can't kidnap a person, drug her, transport her across state lines—hell, out of the country—and not expect a whole ration of shit to fall on you!”
“Oh, I don't know. They took me in the beginning. Bagged me right in front o' me own house. It was only after I understood the potentials and the money to be made that I took over running the program for the Sheik. And a good choice it was. I'm now in charge of research and laboratory operations.”
“Wait. You mean you changed sides—in spite of what they did to you?”
“Ach, what? Hold a little kidnap against them when I could be in charge of the most advanced genetics laboratory in the world? What others do in theory, we do in practice! Lass, I don't even have to write a grant proposal here.”
He chuckled at that and pushed open a large double door. Inside Christal found a rather mundane-looking cafeteria—perhaps thirty by forty—packed with tables, plastic chairs, and a food line of steam tables staffed by four women, also Arab, if she was any judge of such things. She counted fifteen people, still more Arabs given their looks and the sibilant tongue they spoke, who sat at the tables, eating. They were dressed in lab wear: green smocks, pants, and the women all had loose headwear that could be draped over the face. Females, she noted, sat strictly to themselves at a back table, and cast curious glances her way.
“Help yourself,” he instructed as he led her to the line, picked a tray out of a rack, and added silverware, napkin, and a plate from their various stacks and holders.
She was famished, no doubt of it. No doubt, too, that she needed to keep her strength up. The fare was mostly European in nature: roast beef, lamb, potatoes, gravy, steamed cabbage, bread, and cheese—but couscous, hummus, falafel, and other dishes smacked of different appetites by the other diners. She opted for Coke, while he took juice from the machine at the end of the line.
She followed Gregor to a chair, settling herself across from him. The table was a Formica-topped ubiquitous model that might have been found in any institutional lunchroom in the world. Neither of the guards had taken a tray. Instead they discreetly seated themselves far enough away for privacy, close enough to be there in case Christal lunged for McEwan's throat. Her days with LBA had heightened her sense of awareness about these things.
“Who are the Arabs?” She inclined her head toward the others and attacked her plate.
“Geneticists. Lab techs. They're the muscle and bone of Genesis Athena.” That flare of arrogance betrayed itself again. “Most of them, I trained. So they're the best in the business.”
As she wolfed her food, she asked, “I don't get it. Why steal celebrity DNA?”
McEwan studied her thoughtfully as he neatly cut roast beef into cubes, skewered them with his fork, and chewed. “We want to be the first.”
“To steal DNA?”
“Not to steal it, to
patent
it, Ms. Anaya.”
“You can't
patent
someone's DNA! It's, well, it's
personal!”
He laughed at that, genuinely delighted. “Do you know that no law, in any country, protects a person's exclusive right to their own DNA? Not even in your dearly provincial USA.”
“Bullshit!”
“Oddly, bullshit is protected. You can't walk off with a wheelbarrow of manure from someone's bull paddock. That's theft. But once your DNA is out of your body, it belongs to anyone who can lay hold of it.” He spread his fingers wide. “Poof! Gone. It's no longer yours.”
“I don't believe that.”
“Well, I can't affect your beliefs, lass, but when you do go home again, you may be well advised to check the statutes. See if you find DNA listed anywhere in the definitions of personal property. Meantime, however, let's just say I'm right, hmm? There is a huge precedent in law as well as in practice.”
“What? I can tell you that as a graduate of—”
“How often have you had a blood test? Oh, say for cholesterol? Perhaps for a blood chemistry board? You know, to measure lipids, bilirubin, hematocrit, things like that.”
“A few, why?”
“What happened to the extra blood?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean they may have needed a tenth of a milliliter—that's less than a drop, eh? But they took a syringe full. That's an extra three or four whole milliliters of blood. What did they do with it?”
“Threw it out?”
“Hardly! They sold it! Some they distilled for plasma, some for insulin, some for albumin—lots of things. Right! So let's take the insulin, for example. Your body produced it, eh? It was part of you. Does anyone think once it's drawn that it still belongs to you?”
She could only stare at him in disbelief. “DNA is different. I mean, as I understand it, I'm still using my DNA. Cells are synthesizing proteins, dividing, things like that.”
“And all that insulin and plasma? You weren't using that as well?”
She stared.
He chuckled as he spooned up mashed potatoes. “Sorry, lass. No one cares. Laboratories all over the world are taking DNA samples from patients. And, sure as to be, the very second they're coded, they're put up for patent. Some come from folk with resistance to diseases, others from people with a tolerance for certain environments, some even from athletes who show certain kinds of muscle tissue. It's a mad scramble, lass, to see who can get what first. A gold rush like in the wild West. Companies are falling all over themselves
staking claims. And, just like those long-ago miners, no one knows which genes are going to be the mother lode!”
She stared at him, food half-chewed in her mouth. Finally she swallowed and managed to say, “It's illegal to …”
What? Patent another person's DNA?
McGregor stabbed another square of meat. “No, lass. Most governments around the world have only passed laws banning
cloning.
You know, the artificial
reproduction
of another human being. They've said nothing aboot the DNA. In fact, by taking the stance that you c'not reproduce yer own DNA, they have told you ipso facto that the state has more right to regulate your DNA than you do.”
“I don't follow.”
“Indeed?” He took a drink of juice from his tumbler. “Think of it this way: You're of the opinion that yer DNA belongs to you and you alone. What's a clone? A copy of yourself. It's your own DNA that you're copying. Not mine, not the president's, but yours. Now, if that was really the case, could the government regulate it?”
“But that's not the same!”
“Isn't it? Fact is, you have the right to believe in whatever God you want, read whatever book you want, join any political party—but not to control yer own DNA. If you want privacy, stick to your beliefs, but don't look to your body, lass.” The twinkle was back in his eye.
“But laws against cloning—”
“Are laws that regulate your use of your own personal DNA. In your opinion, you think you should have the say over yer own DNA. I understand that. Most people—bless their simple souls—think they do. What they don't understand is that through fear that someone might clone himself, they've given that control over to the government, business, and, most onerous of all,
investors.”
“How did that happen?”
“Sheer unadulterated fear, lass. That, and the social conservatives, of course. God bless the Christian religious right, wherever they live. They've given Genesis Athena a monopoly.”
Christal's mind stumbled over the implications.
“You see,” McEwan continued, “all these technologies, going way back …” He gestured with his knife. “Take insulin, again. No one objected to processing insulin from human blood that was going to be thrown away anyhow. Doing so was in the best interest of society. Insulin used to be a touchy thing. You couldn't mix sheep with human with artificial and not have a reaction. The sources had to be pure. Millions of diabetics benefited, and still do. It was the precedent, you see. DNA just got folded into the same blanket, if you get my drift.”
She glared at him. “So why kidnap me? Why did you have to break the law if this whole operation is legal?”
He chuckled. “Aye, the grandstanding. Why, advertising, of course. We've got the product. Oh, to be sure, we'll be sending little apologies, and even checks in the mail as things begin to fall into place. Admitting to our stunts, as it were, and offering reparation. Legal division's already been hard at work over that.”
“Legal division? You've lost me again.”
McEwan waved his greasy knife. “It's all going to come out in the next year or so. The clients can't be expected to keep their silence. What's the point of having a little Julia Roberts running around the kitchen if you can't brag aboot her t'yer friends, eh? When it does break, it's going to be one of the biggest stories since Bin Laden. Thing is, we don't want to look like simple criminals, so we'll make restitution to the aggrieved parties.” His expression sobered. “It's just the right thing to do. Image, and all that.”
“Wait a minute. You stole all these people's DNA, you're going to patent it, and then send them some sort of pittance to make it right?”
“Aye.”
“Why not just stick a check in the mail now? It's cheaper if they don't have time to think about how they've been gypped.” she said sarcastically.
“Because the less they know now, the easier it will be to get our samples. After the story breaks, things might get a wee bit trickier. People will be more careful—not that it will
do them much good, mind you. The common folk in the streets have no idea how much DNA they leave around in restaurants, hotels, their clothes, cars, even when they lick an envelope.”
Christal shook her head. “I'm still not understanding how this works. You take the DNA, patent it, and then what?”
“Sell it, of course.”
“To whom?”
“Anyone who will pay for it.”
“Give me an example.”
McEwan leaned back, pushing his empty plate away. “Well, take Princess Diana of Wales. Our marketing research determined her to be one of the most beloved women of all time. Getting the sample was the riskiest operation we ever undertook. I'm sure you heard of it.”
She jerked a quick nod. “The lab in Paris where her forensic samples were curated.”
“We had a huge list of applicants just waiting for us to succeed. We've done brilliantly. The first embryos have been implanted in the clients. We've already got a list of close to two hundred candidates for implantation. We've banked over a million and a half in deposits alone.”
“Embryos?” Christal asked, her fork halfway to her mouth. “Damn it, it just sank in. You meant it when you said ‘little Julia Roberts' earlier.”
“Aye,” McEwan said, reading her confusion. “Ye see, Ms. Anaya, we're not just selling the DNA in a bottle or anything like that. When we sell it, it's alive and ready to be implanted into the host mother.”
H
ank tried to put the last forty-eight hours into perspective. Genesis Athena, he'd discovered, was nothing if not organized. He'd been surprised to find his luggage unloaded from the cargo hold of the aircraft that had carried
them to Teterboro, New Jersey. April assured him his room charge at the Hilton had been taken care of. A physician had met their flight, checked on Christal's condition, inserted an IV drip, and given her another sedative. The helicopter flight to the marina at Eastham, on Cape Cod, had been both quick and efficient. He and Neal had carried Christal's somnolent body aboard a sleek cigarette boat; and an hour later, they had watched her lifted aboard the
ZoeGen
by capable crewmen. Hank had scrambled onto the lowered ladder and up into a hatch that opened in the cruise ship's side.
April had led him to her cabin, a snug room with wooden paneling, a plush bed, and most of the amenities. Sex had led to sleep that had led to more sex, and so forth.
Now, showered, shaved, and rested as he hadn't been in months, Hank found himself sitting across from April in her cabin, eating breakfast from a room service cart a steward had brought. Pale midday light glowed through the single porthole.
“Happy?” April asked as she lifted a forkful of scrambled eggs from her plate and balanced them. Her robe hung open far enough that he could see the soft curve of her breast.
Hank finished chewing his bacon, washed it down with a shot of black coffee, and wiped his lips. “I think I've fallen through the looking glass.” He chuckled, opening his arms wide to take in the surroundings. He wore a white terry cloth robe belted at the waist.
April scraped up the last of her eggs, used her napkin, and asked, “Want to see the rest of the ship?”
He gave her a thoughtful look. “Beyond the infamous bulkhead?”
Her sober eyes took his measure. “First, I have to know. Are you in? All the way?”
He chewed his lip, gave a curt nod, and stood. “Yeah, I'm in.”
“Why?” she demanded. “What would convince you to do this? You used to be a federal agent. Sometimes, working for Genesis Athena, you'll have to skirt the law. Why would you sell your soul? For a payback?”
“Nah, I'm smarter than that.” He gestured around at the
plush quarters. “I like the way you do business. Charter aircraft, your own ship, and capable personnel? I could be an asset to you. And I'm assuming you weren't blowing smoke about the salary.”
“No smoke.”
“Things went so fast the other night. Until now I never understood that you can just get swept away. I mean, we kidnapped Christal. It's a felony, April. Whatever it was that we did, we can't go back. Can't rethink it and change it.”
“You feeling trapped?” she asked as she stood and slipped her robe off.
He stopped short, watching her perfect body. A dancer had a body like that, toned and agile. She stepped to her dresser, pulled the top drawer open, and fished out a bra and panties. He watched one long tanned leg after the other slide through the openings.
She glanced at him as she snapped her bra and slipped her arms through the straps. The question hung between them. Trapped? Hell, how did he answer that?
“Sure. But I was part of the entrapment. I knew what I was doing, setting Christal up. When we packed her out of that place, I had a momentary hesitation. I was doing everything I'd ever been trained to prevent; but you know, I haven't lost any sleep over it.”
She laughed as she pulled gray cotton slacks on. “I keep telling you, we're not doing anything illegal. People may disagree with our methods, but there are no laws—”
“Kidnapping—”
“Shit!” she snapped. “Cut it out, Hank. Remember? I asked her. She said she'd go if we answered her questions. You heard her.”
“She was drugged! A good DA would—”
April walked up to him, slipped her hands inside his robe, and pressed her palms against his chest. They were cool on his warm skin. “We'll make it right with her. She won't press charges when we're through. We've paid her back in a way she'll never forget. Genesis Athena has the resources to fix almost anything. We're here for the long term—with a product
no one else is going to be able to provide.” A smile curled her lips. “Trust me.”
He hesitated, staring into those marvelous eyes. Then he nodded. What the hell. “Yeah, like I said, I'm in.” He gave her a sly grin. “And I could get real used to the lifestyle.”
“Come on,” she added impishly. “Get dressed. Let me show you why you've made the best decision of your life. You're in on the ground floor of the biggest industry of the twenty-first century.”
Moments later they rolled the cart with their demolished breakfast out into the narrow companionway for the staff to pick up, and April led him through one of the hatches and into a major corridor.
“As you've no doubt guessed,
ZoeGen
is an old cruise ship. Greek, originally, and perfect for our needs. She provides us with accommodations for fifteen hundred clients at a time. Currently we have over three hundred staff and crew on board. They berth in the lower decks. We do everything from genetic scans, genetic engineering, gene replacement and therapy, molecular engineering, all the way to providing complete reproductive services for any client, male or female.”
“What do you mean, male? How does man reproduce himself?”
“Our geneticists retrieve one of his germ cells from the testes before it divides into sperm. They remove the nucleus and insert it into a host woman's denucleated egg. Once it's implanted in her womb, she carries the fetus to term, delivers it, and after we're sure the child is healthy, it's given to the father.”
“You have women who will do this?”
“For a price, Hank. It's a big world out there, and you'd be surprised what an incentive a couple thousand US can be in a place like Bangkok. None of this comes cheaply, but what some people will pay for an exact genetic copy of themselves would amaze you. It's the ultimate narcissism on a mobile platform we can take anywhere in the world.”
“As long as you stay in international waters.”
“That's right. That's our ace in the hole.” She had pulled
her reddish hair into a ponytail that bobbed as she nodded. “We have a full legal team, but sometimes even they can't keep up with the laws in individual countries. The high seas are open territory for Genesis Athena.”
She stopped at a hatch, pressed a series of numbers into a keypad, and opened the sealed door.
Hank stepped through into what had once been an open two-story room, perhaps fifty feet across and sixty long. The balcony where he stood was now glassed, providing a view of the floor a story below.
“This used to be the ballroom,” April said, taking a position on the railing before the glass. “You're looking down onto one of the G Deck labs.”
Hank could see white-clad people seated at counters around what was clearly a laboratory. Racks of test tubes, beakers, tubing, and trays were everywhere. He could identify the microscopes, of course, but the rest of the equipment baffled him. “The last time I took science was in college. I was in the criminal justice program, not biology. What is all this stuff?”
April shrugged. “I haven't the slightest idea. What you're seeing is where the real heart of Genesis Athena lies. Those people down there are the brains that make it all possible.”
“Okay, enough of the melodrama. What am I seeing?”
She gave him a sidelong glance as she said, “You would call it cloning, Hank. Pure and simple. The world market for molecular biology, gene therapy, infertility, and genetic engineering is huge. Billions huge, and I'm talking dollars, euros, pounds, what have you.”
“So, what was Christal doing that hacked you off?”
“She was nosing her way onto my particular turf.”
“And that is?”
“Obtaining DNA.”
Hank frowned. “Whose DNA?”
“My biggest single acquisition was Elvis Presley.”
“Get off it! The guy's dead.”
Her laughter sounded musical. “His body, yes. We used a truck-mounted drill to bore a hole through his tomb. Center-punched his casket and inserted a probe into the corpse. By
employing the correct procedures, our techs can recover intact nuclear DNA despite the mortuary preservative.”
“How come I didn't hear about it? Drilling a hole in Presley's grave, I mean.”
“Because Graceland covered it up. They didn't want the publicity. Put yourself in their place. Would you want the whole world to know that someone had violated your security, drilled a hole in your hero, and walked off with a piece of him? It might tarnish the myth, or worse, encourage someone else to try.”
“You drilled a hole …” He shook his head, baffled.
April stared down pensively. “Since then we've changed our methodology. Now we don't leave any doubt about the validity of our samples. As to Elvis, it's okay. You remember that eBay auction of Elvis' hair a couple of years back? We've got rock-solid provenance, and can cross-compare the DNA from that to our Graceland sample. We've got a waiting list of clients scheduled for implantation for the foreseeable future.”
“For tubes of dead Elvis DNA?” He was looking out at the laboratory, thinking of how much money people spent for things like Elvis' guitar.
“Tubes of … Hardly! You still don't get it, do you?”
“Get what?”
She teased him with her eyes. “Do you remember the line in the movie
Men in Black?
The one where they're driving on the roof of the tunnel?”
“Yeah, Tommy Lee Jones says that Elvis isn't dead, he's just gone home.”
April gave him a bewitching smile. “Our first Elvis clone was born last week. The host mother is a rich widow from Indianapolis. So you see, the movie was right. He went home—but now he's back.”
“This is a joke, right?”
“Do you remember the Tasmanian wolves a few years back? One of our people pioneered that process. DNA is only a molecule, a code. It doesn't die along with the body. If it's preserved, the code can be reactivated.”
He stared, openmouthed.
April's eyes seemed to enlarge as she shook her head. “Now, Hank, are you beginning to understand the power behind Genesis Athena and why people will pay millions for DNA that we control the patents to?”
 
 
After a night of unrelenting nightmares, Sheela sat on her poolside recliner. In the cool protection of the shade, she watched turquoise water lap at the white cement walls. “The cement pond,” the Beverly Hillbillies had called it. How appropriate for a Saskatchewan girl's final retreat. The only standing water she had known for her first fourteen years had been the clear water in the dugouts where the horses and cattle drank.
How did I get here?
Looking back through the kaleidoscope of her tumultuous life, she might have been carried off by a tornado. Batted this way and that by the winds of opportunity, fortune, and plain dumb luck, she had come out on top.
How much of myself did I sell on the way?
She pursed her lips, shifting her gaze to the fountain in the flower bed, where water bubbled and danced in a delighted spray beneath the Sacagawea statue.
Not as much as most do,
she decided. Truly talented people always wrestled with the green-eyed demon of insecurity. She too was constantly plagued as the beast hung its scaled head over her shoulder to whisper that she wasn't any good anymore, that she could never conjure. an Oscar-worthy character like Cassie Evens in
Blood Rage
again. That
Jagged Cat
was going to be released to howls of derision. It would land at the box office stillborn, the dissection of its carcass celebrated by the wags in
Time, Newsweek, Daily Variety
and
The Hollywood Reporter.
“Washed up!” the headlines would decry.
How did I let Christal down?
She rubbed her right thumb across the smooth back of her left hand, feeling the skin, bone, and tendons slipping beneath.
If I had taken the meet
ing Rex
wanted me to, would it have been different?
Had it been the gods staring down from their aeries on high? Had they seen her desperation to change her life? To save herself? Her belief in the capriciousness of fate was tragically Greek in nature. For any good thing, some terrible price ultimately had to be paid.
“Sheela?” Felix's soft voice interrupted.
She glanced over her shoulder as he came walking out in an expensive silk suit that rippled like a rainbow trapped inside gray. “Hello, Felix. Come, sit.”

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