Transhuman (19 page)

She and Luke were riding back to the Bartram Labs after an afternoon of shopping for clothes. Luke had insisted on paying for everything out of the diminishing bankroll he carried in his wallet. Tamara wanted to at least buy their lunch, but that would mean using her credit card, and Luke balked at that.

The MRI scans of Angela's brain that morning had been very positive. No trace of tumors. Luke had let out a whoop of victory that startled the lab technicians and made Angela laugh at her grandfather's antics.

“Now if the progeria reverses…,” Tamara had said.

“If it doesn't,” Luke had countered, “we'll put her on telomerase accelerators and bring her back to normal.”

Tamara nodded without pointing out that the accelerators might lead to new tumors. She didn't have to say it; Luke knew.

But for a few hours they left all that behind them as they traipsed from one shop to another at the biggest mall in Portland and bought everything from underwear to winter hats.

Sitting in the back seat of the Infiniti, with Jesús driving up front, Luke said, “Let's have dinner at a top-grade restaurant.”

“I'm still full from lunch,” Tamara said. “Besides, we're halfway to the labs now.”

Luke nodded, disappointed. It would have been fun having a quiet dinner, he thought. Just the two of us. Then he realized that he was thinking of a quiet
romantic
dinner. And why not? he asked himself. Tamara's a wonderfully good-looking woman, and I … Lord, I haven't felt this way about a woman in years. Ages.

Tamara broke into his thoughts. “How many women are in love with you, Luke?”

Startled, he blurted, “In love with me?”

With a mischievous smile, she said, “There was Petrone in Bethesda, and now Bartram here in Oregon. How many other women do you have stashed away someplace?”

Luke stared at her. “What're you talking about? Shannon was a student of mine. We never had anything going on between us.”

“Maybe you didn't, but she did.”

“Nonsense.”

“If I wasn't around to protect you…” She let the thought dangle.

Luke saw the curve of her lips. “Listen,” he said. “I never had anything going with either one of them, or anybody else, for that matter. I was a faithful husband. If you'd known Adele, you'd know why.”

More seriously, Tamara said, “I'm sure you were, Luke. But she's gone, and Shannon is interested in you.”

“Bullshit.”

“For real. Keep your guard up.”

“Bullshit,” he repeated. Then he added, “Besides, if I was going to get interested in a woman, it'd be a good-looking chick like you.”

It was Tamara's turn to go wide-eyed with surprise.

*   *   *

T
HERE WAS NOTHING
more stupefyingly boring than listening to other people's conversations. All morning long, Hightower sat in the audio technician's cramped little booth and strained to hear a clue, a hint, a whisper that might tell him where Abramson had fled to.

The young technician had worked all through the night to amplify the weak voices on the CDs. Now—baggy-eyed and listless, with four emptied cardboard mugs of coffee littering his worktable—he was playing them for Hightower to hear.

The booth was the size of a casket stood on end, Hightower thought. Windowless, airless. The only chair they could find for him was a rickety three-legged stool. Hightower planted himself on it without complaint, so close to the young technician that he could smell the kid's body odor. Little geek didn't shower this morning, he told himself.

Nothing. Nearly two hours of nothing. Most of the chatter between Abramson and Dr. Minteer was about the condition of their patient, Abramson's granddaughter. Several times they left whichever room they were in and went outside, where the microphones couldn't pick up their voices.

Hightower shook his head. Amateurs. Merriwether was an amateur at bugging his guests' rooms. A pro would have included those verandas.

Or maybe, Hightower thought, Merriwether had installed the listening devices suddenly, on the spur of the moment, when he'd learned that Abramson would be coming to stay at Nottaway.

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

Q
UENTON 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.”

*   *   *

L
UKE 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

M
ORNING 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.”