Nano

CHAPTER 33

Despite the noise in the room, Zach Berman was practically asleep on his feet. Two Chinese trainers were shouting instructions to a pair of riders crouched over racing bikes on stands that converted them to stationary mode. The riders were wired up to banks of instruments, and as they pedaled furiously they yelled back to the trainers, begging to be allowed to stop, or so Berman assumed, going by the little Mandarin he’d been able to pick up. The air in the lab was so thick and close that the riders were perspiring profusely and adding to Berman’s sleepiness.

He had spent hours in the room as the scientists and trainers tried again to replicate the conditions under which the rider might go into arrest, as the runner and now two cyclists had done in the open. Indeed, the same cyclist who’d had the mishap previously was one of the test subjects, but try as the scientists might, adjusting dosages, degree of hydration, various stressors, and varying riding conditions, both men were riding as hard, and complaining as loudly, as ever after almost ten hours of work, with absolutely no change in their relatively slow heart rates and their normal cardiac rhythms and shallow breathing.

These had been a frantic few days for Zach Berman. Despite strict orders for all the subjects not to go out on their own, no matter how confident they felt, here he was, presented with yet another problem. The cyclist’s crisis had come just weeks after the jogger’s similar public collapse, over which Berman believed he had finally prevailed and ridden out the storm of questioning that had emanated from China. Having another similar episode would be inconvenient timing, to say the very least. Berman’s backers believed the technology was close to being perfected, and any technical glitch like this seemed to throw the whole project into doubt. Berman knew he couldn’t help much with the science, but he had to be in the room to witness the work, as being away from it, speculating on what was going wrong, proved unbearable for him. His only consolation was that it was better that it should happen now rather than when it really counted.

The other problem driving Berman nuts was that he couldn’t stop thinking about Pia. The emergency contingency plans put into place by Berman’s head of security had worked smoothly. As soon as the rider had gone down, the team assembled their van and got ready to retrieve him, and they were aware, through their contact at Boulder Memorial, that the ambulance was getting there ahead of the Nano team. But the pickup from the ambulance went well and the situation appeared to be under control when the chief of security heard a report that the head of the Boulder Memorial ER and “some young woman” seemed to have set off in pursuit.

When the head of security quickly called Berman and said he could “deal with it,” Berman had reluctantly acquiesced. Berman paid people handsomely to take care of problems like this. The security chief had told him not to worry; there was no chance of the incident being deemed anything other than an accident; he could deal with that end of the matter, too, if it came to it.

Later, Berman had heard that Pia was involved in a car accident on that same road, and he quickly deduced that she was in the vehicle with the doctor racing after the cyclist. Berman knew it was Pia who had found the runner who had gone down, and she had asked Mariel Spallek a lot of questions about it, but he convinced himself then that he had nothing to worry about. This time, he wasn’t so sure. Still, he found that he was very glad Pia was alive, because he felt the unfinished business he had with the woman trumped any minor threat she might pose.

More than anything else, Berman wanted to redeem his masculinity with her. At his house, when she had essentially invited herself to dinner, her seductiveness had driven him wild. The fact that he had passed out like some immature teenager was a monumental blow to his ego and self-image. When she was better and out of the hospital he wanted to make up for the lost opportunity, especially replaying in his mind her exotic and erotic dance. As far as her curious streak was concerned, he was confident he could deal with that himself, but in his own way. After all, he had dealt with Whitney and Mariel without a problem after he’d gotten tired of their personal favors.

Berman rubbed his eyes and drank cold coffee from a cup that had been filled about three hours previously. The thought occurred to him that perhaps these apparent cardiac arrests were just anomalies, one-off events that couldn’t be explained and would even out statistically. If that was the case, Berman thought he would be consumed by anxiety waiting for the next one. Berman resolved to have the trainers threaten the subjects more convincingly to make sure they never went out alone, and to have the scofflaws punished more seriously, so that if such medical disasters did reoccur, no one would find out about them to draw attention to Nano.

Berman was snapped out of his troubled musings by Whitney Jones, who suddenly shook him hard by the shoulder. She’d slipped into the lab unseen and unheard by Berman.

“Mr. Berman, are you okay? You look like you’re fading.”

“No, Whitney, I’m fine. Where did you come from? What are you doing still up?”

“I should be up if you are. And I’m glad I was. I was waiting for you in your office and took a call that came in on your direct line. I said to the caller that I’d find you. You have to come back to take the call. He’ll be calling back.”

“What now? Another problem?”

“Yes, I’m afraid it must be. It was Klaastens, the trainer from the cycling team. He said it’s very urgent and involved one of the Chinese cyclists.”

“Shit!” Berman mumbled. “I hope to hell it isn’t another cardiac arrest. Did he say what it was?”

“No, he didn’t, and I didn’t press him. He was insistent about talking directly with you. He said he’d tried your home number, but there was no answer.”

“How the hell did he get the direct-line office number?” Berman had a private phone in his office that was restricted to a very few trusted cohorts and certain high-ranking Chinese dignitaries, but Victor Klaastens was not part of either group. “I’d given him the home number but not the private office number.”

“I don’t know, you can ask him that yourself.” Whitney started to guide Berman out of the room. “He’s calling back in fifteen minutes from now, so you have to move it.”

Berman could hardly put one foot in front of the other, but he knew he had to go back to his office if he wanted to speak with Klaastens. The direct line bypassed the Nano switchboard, so he couldn’t take it in the aerobics lab. On top of that, all cell phone and data transmissions were blocked in this part of Nano, thanks to one of Nano’s own products, a wall paint that blocked radio frequencies.

As soon as Berman dragged himself into his office, the direct-line phone rang. Berman let it ring three times to allow himself to take a deep breath before he picked up.

“Yes?” he said.

“Mr. Berman, it’s Victor Klaastens—”

“How did you get this number?” Berman’s irritation at what he considered a security problem had woken him up. He wanted to be absolutely certain that the direct line was never bugged.

“Mr. Berman, please, I may not have your resources, but I’m not a stupid man. You should listen to what I want to tell you, because it’s more important than a restricted phone number. And don’t worry, no one can trace this phone or where I’m calling from.”

“Okay, so tell me.”

“It’s one of your riders, Han. He’s injured.”

“Injured? How? His heart…?” Berman stopped himself from saying more.

“His heart? That’s curious you should say that. No, not his heart, it’s his Achilles tendon. A complete rupture, I’m afraid.”

“That’s odd,” Berman said. He was relieved it hadn’t been a cardiac problem, which is what he fully expected. An Achilles tendon rupture was an injury that could happen to any athlete who was pushing the limits, and therefore less worrisome vis-à-vis the Chinese. At the same time, it was a problem, and problems were not something he wanted happening now. Was this another anomalous injury? Did cyclists ever have this kind of injury — wasn’t it more associated with contact sports? Even if it wasn’t a direct result of the program, what was China going to say about this? Shit.

“Mr. Berman?” Klaastens said, unsure if Berman was still on the line.

“A complete rupture, you say.”

“Yes, he was doing some aerobic work on the stationary bike this morning, warming up, when it went. He wasn’t even pushing himself particularly hard. One minute everything was fine, the next minute he said it felt like someone kicked him very hard in the back of the leg. I’m sorry, I know this is not what you want to hear.”

“And Han, what’s happening to him?”

“He was taken to the hospital, of course, but he won’t be there very long. I spoke briefly with one of the doctors. He said that they will wait for the swelling to go down, and then an operation can be done if it is desired, but it can wait a while. It can be treated conservatively as well; it just takes longer to heal.”

“Okay, don’t do anything. I’m coming to Milan for the last stage, on the twenty-seventh, can he wait that long?”

“I am the trainer, not the doctor, I don’t know. It’s a shame, he was performing well, very comfortable. I think he shows more promise than Bo. Next season, he can be back, and stronger.”

“Next season,” said Berman, as much to himself as Klaastens. He knew if the next phase of his master plan wasn’t successful, there would be no next season.

“So I will see you in Milan on the twenty-seventh, Mr. Berman.” Klaastens waited for a reply, but Zach Berman had already ended the call.