Seizure

nineteen

12:11 P.M., Monday, March 11, 2002

The sign’s message was clear. It said: RESTRICTED ACCESS, AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY, PROHIBITION STRICTLY ENFORCED. Stephanie paused for a moment, gazing at the framed, glazed sign. It was attached to a door next to a freight elevator. It was from this door that Cindy Drexler routinely emerged, most interestingly, when she’d brought the oocytes for Stephanie and Daniel. Stephanie had seen the sign obliquely from a distance but had never gone over to read it. Now that she had, it gave her pause. She wondered what it meant for the prohibition to be strictly enforced, considering the Wingate principals’ tendency toward overkill in the security arena. But she had come this far and wasn’t about to turn around and give up because of a generic printed warning. She pushed against the door. It opened. Beyond was a stairway leading downward. The reassuring thought went through her mind that if they were so concerned about intruders in the egg room, they would have locked the stairwell door.

With a final rapid glance over her shoulder to make sure she was alone in the lab, Stephanie stepped through the door. It closed behind her. Immediately, she sensed a contrast from the dry coolness of the air-conditioned lab. Within the stairwell, the air was considerably warmer and moister. She started down the stairs, moving quickly, aided by her flat shoes.

Stephanie was rushing as best she could because she had planned to give herself a mere fifteen minutes-twenty, tops-to be away from Daniel. She checked her watch as she descended; five minutes had already been consumed just getting from the cafeteria to where she was at that moment. Her only minor detour had been to grab her cell phone. She didn’t want to forget and get back to the cafeteria without it, since it was her excuse for being away. Daniel had given her a strange look when she’d jumped up, saying she’d forgotten it, just after sitting down with her meal. She knew he’d be irritated if he knew what she was up to.

At the base of the stairs, Stephanie skidded to a stop. She found herself in a short, dimly lit corridor with access to the freight elevator along one wall and a shiny, stainless-steel door totally devoid of hardware at its end. There was no door handle or even lock. Stephanie approached the door and put her hand on it to push. It was warm to the touch but entirely immobile. She put her ear to it. She thought she could detect a slight whirring noise from beyond.

Stephanie leaned back and glanced around the blank door’s periphery. It sealed against a metal jamb with a machinist’s precision. Getting down on her hands and knees, she noted it was the same at the door’s base. The care with which the door was fashioned fanned her already considerable curiosity. She got back on her feet, and with the side of her fist, she thumped quietly against the door. She was trying to gauge its thickness, which she surmised was considerable, since it was rock-solid.

“Well, so much for my mini-investigation,” Stephanie whispered out loud. She shook her head in frustration while allowing her eyes to trace around the periphery once more. She was surprised there was no bell or intercom system, nor any obvious way to open the door or communicate with anyone within.

With a final sigh of exasperation accompanied by an expression of disgust, she turned back to the stairs, recognizing she’d have to conjure up another strategy if she intended to continue her clandestine sleuthing. But she only took a single step when her eye caught something she’d missed. Barely protruding from the wall opposite the freight elevator and quite inconspicuous in the dim light was a tiny, three-inch-long by three-quarters-of-an-inch-wide card swipe. Stephanie had not seen it earlier, because her attention had been overwhelmed by the gleaming door itself. Also, the swipe was the same neutral color as the wall and was more than six feet from the door.

Megan Finnigan had made sure Stephanie and Daniel had Wingate Clinic identification cards. Each had an ugly, mugshot-style Polaroid photo laminated on the face with magnetic strip on the back. Megan had said that the cards would be more important for security purposes when the clinic was up to strength personnel-wise, at which time they would be coded for the bearer’s individual needs. In the meantime, Megan told them the cards were necessary to get into the lab’s storeroom for basic supplies.

On the odd chance the ID card might work for the egg room at this early stage of the clinic’s existence, Stephanie gave it a try. She was immediately rewarded by the stainless-steel door retracting to the side with a muffled whoosh of compressed air. At the same time, Stephanie noticed that she was enveloped by a weird glow emanating from the room beyond, which she guessed was a mixture of incandescent and ultraviolet light. There was also an accompanying waft of moist, warm air, and the whirring noise she’d thought she’d heard earlier with her ear to the door was now a definite presence.

Pleased at this sudden but welcome reversal of fortune, Stephanie quickly stepped over the threshold and found herself in what appeared to be a giant incubator. With the temperature in the vicinity of 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit, or body temperature, and the humidity close to one hundred percent, she felt perspiration break out all over her body. Although she was wearing a sleeveless blouse, she had a short, white laboratory coat over it. She now understood why Cindy wore a special lightweight cotton jumpsuit.

Racks similar to bookshelves but containing tissue culture dishes formed a gridlike floor plan similar to the stacks of a library. Each was about ten feet long, constructed of aluminum with adjustable shelves and extended from the tile floor to the rather low tile ceiling. All the tissue culture dishes in Stephanie’s immediate view were empty. Ahead of her was a lengthy aisle, the shelving of which made it appear to be a study in perspective. It was so long that a dim, humid haze obscured its distant end. From the size of the facility, it was obvious the Wingate was preparing for significant production capacity.

Stephanie started forward at a rapid walk, glancing from side to side. Thirty paces into the room, she stopped when she found a rack that contained actively growing tissue cultures, as evidenced by fluid levels visible through the clear glass containers. She lifted one out. Written in grease pencil on its cover was OOGONIA CULTURE, accompanied by a recent date and an alphanumeric code.

Stephanie replaced the dish and checked others throughout the rack. They had different dates and different codes. Learning that the Wingate was seemingly successfully culturing primitive germ cells was both interesting and disturbing for a variety of reasons, but it was not her goal. What she was hoping to do was to ascertain the origin of the oogonia and the oocytes they were culturing and maturing. She thought she knew, but she wanted definitive proof that she could pass on to a Bahamian authority after Butler’s treatment and after she, Daniel, and Butler had returned to the mainland. She glanced at her watch. Eight minutes had now gone by, which was about half her allotted time.

With mounting anxiety, Stephanie pressed ahead, quickening her pace while peering down the side corridors as well as cursorily glancing at each rack of shelves she passed. The problem was that she didn’t know what she was looking for, and the room was enormous. To make matters worse, she began to notice a mild sensation of air hunger. It then dawned on her that the atmosphere in the egg room probably had an elevated level of carbon dioxide for the benefit of the tissue cultures.

After another twenty paces Stephanie stopped again. She’d come to a rack with unique and apparently customized tissue culture dishes. Stephanie had never seen anything like them. Not only were they larger and deeper than usual, but they also had a built-in internal matrix on which the cultured cells could grow. In addition, they were set on motorized bases to keep them in continuous, horizontal, circular motion, presumably to circulate the culture medium. Wasting no time Stephanie reached in and lifted out one of the dishes. On its cover was written MINCED FETAL OVARY, TWENTY-ONE WEEKS GESTATION; OOCYTES ARRESTED IN DIPLOTENE STAGE OF PROPHASE, followed again by a date and a code. Stephanie checked the other dishes in the rack. As with the oogonia cultures they all had different dates and different codes.

The next few racks were even more interesting. They housed tissue culture dishes, which were larger and deeper still, but there were fewer per shelf. Most of them were empty. Those that weren’t contained a fluid growth medium that was being circulated by a complex of tubes to central machines, which appeared like a miniature kidney dialysis unit and which collectively made the background whirring noise that filled the room. Stephanie bent over and peered into one of the culture dishes. Submerged in the contained fluid was a small, ovoid, and ragged piece of tissue, approximately the size and shape of a manila clam. Vessels that protruded from the tiny organ were cannulated by minute plastic tubes leading to another, even smaller machine. The tiny organ was being internally perfused as well as being submerged in continuously circulated culture medium.

Stephanie stuck her head into the rack so she could look at the top of the container without disturbing it. Written in red grease pencil was FETAL OVARY, TWENTY WEEKS GESTATION along with a date and code. Despite the implications, she couldn’t help but be impressed. It seemed that Saunders and his team were keeping intact fetal ovaries alive at least for a few days.

Stephanie straightened back up. Although hardly definitive proof, what she was finding in the egg room was certainly consistent with her suspicions that Paul Saunders et al. were paying young Bahamian women to be impregnated and then aborted at about twenty weeks to harvest fetal ovaries. With her embryology training, she knew something most laypeople didn’t know, namely that the diminutive ovary of a twenty-one-week-old fetus contains about seven million germ cells capable of becoming mature oocytes. Most of these eggs are destined to disappear inexplicably prior to birth and during childhood, such that when a young woman begins her reproductive years, her germ cell population has been reduced to approximately three hundred thousand. If obtaining human oocytes is the goal, the fetal ovary is the mother lode. Unfortunately, Paul Saunders seemed to know this as well.

With her fears at least partially substantiated, Stephanie shook her head in dismay at the utter immorality involved in aborting human fetuses for eggs. To her, it was worse than pushing ahead with reproductive cloning, which she also suspected was part of Paul Saunders’s game plan. Stephanie recognized it was maverick infertility organizations like the Wingate Clinic that had the power to cast a pall over biotechnology and its promise by engaging in such unconscionable activities. It also passed through her mind that Daniel’s ability to turn a blind eye to such a reality in this current instance said something about him that she would rather not have known, and that knowledge, combined with the emotional distance he was currently displaying, made her question the future of their relationship more than she’d ever done in the past. Impulsively, she decided as a bare minimum that when they got back to Cambridge she would move out on her own.

But there was a lot to be done until then. Stephanie checked her watch again. Eleven minutes had elapsed. She was running out of time, since she would have only four more minutes, at most, on her current visit. She needed to find a true smoking gun so Saunders couldn’t claim the abortions were therapeutic. Although she could theoretically return to the egg room another day, she intuitively knew it would be difficult, especially coming up with another credible excuse to be away from Daniel. He might not be emotionally supportive, but he was certainly staying close by physically.

Four minutes was not much time. Out of desperation, Stephanie elected to race the rest of the way down to the end of the room, go laterally, and then return to the open door along another of the numerous lengthwise aisles. But after she’d gone only twenty feet, she came to a sudden stop. On a glance to her left down one of the side aisles, she saw what appeared to be a laboratory or an office separated from the main room by floor-to-ceiling windows. It was about twenty feet away from where she was standing. Bright fluorescent light emanated from within and inundated the immediate area. Stephanie changed direction and hurried toward it.

As she approached, she saw that her initial impression had been correct. It was most likely Cindy’s office/lab positioned conveniently midway down the length of the egg room and tucked against the building’s foundation. The room had a shallow, rectangular shape no more than ten feet deep but some twenty-five to thirty feet long. Running along its back wall was a laminate countertop with drawers below. In the center was a kneehole to form a desk. At the extreme left was an in-counter sink with a typical laboratory faucet. Cabinets were above. The bright fluorescent light was coming from hidden, under-cabinet fixtures, which flooded the countertop with blue-white illumination.

The counter itself was cluttered with tissue-culture dishes, centrifuges, and all sorts of other laboratory paraphernalia, but none of it interested Stephanie. Her attention had been immediately drawn to what looked like a large, open ledger book positioned at the desk area. It was partially obscured by the high back of the office chair.

Knowing that time was slipping away relentlessly, Stephanie’s eyes darted up and down the length of the windowed office, searching for a door. To her surprise, it was right in front of her, and except for its recessed handle, it looked like the other glass panels. Its hinges were on the inside.

With a keyhole suggesting the door could be locked, Stephanie prayed it wasn’t. She lifted the door handle from its socket and gave it a twist. To her relief, it turned, and the door effortlessly opened inward. As she stepped into the long, narrow room, she could feel a breeze of the egg room air coming along with her, suggesting the egg room was slightly pressurized, probably to keep out airborne microbes. The interior of the narrow office was air-conditioned to a normal temperature and humidity. Letting go of the door and leaving it ajar, Stephanie moved over to the ledger and was immediately engrossed; she sensed that she had found what she was looking for.

She pushed the office chair aside to bend over for a closer look at the handwritten entries. It was indeed a ledger, but not for finance. Instead, it was a list of all the women who had been impregnated and aborted including the dates of both, along with other information. Flipping back a few pages, Stephanie could see that the program had begun well before the clinic had opened its doors. Paul Saunders had been planning his egg supply well in advance.

Stephanie picked out a few individual cases, and running her finger along individual entries, she learned that the women had been impregnated following in vitro fertilization. IVF made sense, since only female fetuses were wanted, and IVF would be the only way to guarantee such an outcome. She noticed the X chromosome sperm involved in the cases she was looking at were all from Paul Saunders, which testified to an abiding, conscienceless megalomania.

Stephanie was entirely captivated. Everything was duly recorded in a bold script. She could even tell what type of tissue culture was done from each case as well as the respective cultures’ current status in the egg room. While some fetuses contributed whole ovary preparations, others had their ovaries minced and cultured, and others were reduced to providing disaggregated germ cell lines.

Returning to the original page displayed when she had come into the room, Stephanie began counting how many women were currently pregnant. She couldn’t help but shake her head that Saunders and company not only had the temerity to carry out such a program but also the audacity to record all its sordid details in black and white. With such a discovery, all Stephanie would have to do was inform the Bahamian authorities of the ledger’s existence and leave it up to them to confiscate it.

Suddenly, Stephanie froze as a thunderbolt of fear descended her spine. She hadn’t quite finished counting the pregnant women when her heart leaped in her chest. With no sound or any warning whatsoever, a circle of cold steel had insinuated itself through her hair and pressed against the back of her perspiring neck. Instantly, she knew without a modicum of doubt that it was the barrel of a gun!

“Don’t move, and put your palms on the desk,” a disembodied voice threatened.

Stephanie felt her knees weaken. She was momentarily paralyzed. All the anxieties attendant to her snooping and aggravated by the press of time had coalesced in a maelstrom of sheer terror. She was bent at the waist over the ledger book, with one hand on the desk and the other poised in the air. She’d been using her index finger to help with the counting.

“Put your palms on the desk!” Kurt repeated with uncamouflaged anger. His voice quivered. He had to restrain himself from an urge to pistol-whip this shamefully provocative female who’d had the nerve to enter the egg room.

The gun barrel pressed in against Stephanie’s neck just short of pain. Finding the strength to move, she did as she was told and put her right palm on the countertop. Having both hands on the desk kept her from possibly collapsing. She was shaking from fright to the point that her leg muscles felt like jelly.

Thankfully, the barrel of the gun was withdrawn. Stephanie took a breath. Vaguely, she was aware of searching hands going into her jacket pockets. She felt her cell phone and the clutter of pencils and papers removed and then replaced. She was beginning to recover to a degree, when she felt hands come up under the lab coat and reach around to fondle her breasts.

“What the hell are you doing?” she managed to demand.

“Shut up!” Kurt snarled. His hands dropped down to pat along the sides of her thorax. Then they dropped further to her hips, where they momentarily stopped.

Stephanie held her breath. She was mortified and humiliated. The next thing she knew, the hands were cupping her buttocks. “This is an outrage!” she sputtered. Anger began to crowd out her fear. She started to straighten up, with the intention of confronting her tormentor.

“Shut up!” Kurt shouted again. A hand pressed into her back, hard enough to collapse her on top of the ledger with her arms splayed to the sides. The gun was again pressed against the nape of her neck, this time painfully. “Don’t doubt for a second I wouldn’t shoot you here and now.”

“I’m Dr. D’Agostino,” Stephanie managed, despite the crushing weight on her back. “I’m working here.”

“I know who you are,” Kurt snarled. “And I know you are not working here in the egg room. This is off-limits.”

Stephanie could feel Kurt’s hot breath. He was leaning over on top of her, pressing her down onto the desk. It was hard to breathe.

“If you move again, I’ll shoot you.”

“Okay,” Stephanie squeaked. To her relief, the suffocating weight was released. She took a deep breath, only to feel a hand thrust between her legs to fondle her further. She gritted her teeth at the outrage. Then two hands patted down one leg and then the other, but not before her crotch was again groped. Next, the man’s weight pressed back down on top of her, but not quite as forcibly as earlier. At the same time, she felt his hot breath on her neck as he rubbed himself lustfully against her and whispered in her ear: “Women like you deserve what they get.”

Stephanie resisted the urge to try to fight back or even scream. The man on top of her had to be deranged, and her intuition silently shouted for her to be passive for the moment. After all, she was in a medical clinic and not in some isolated location. Cindy Drexler and perhaps others would be appearing shortly.

“You see, bitch,” Kurt continued, “I had to make sure you were not carrying a camera or a weapon. Intruders tend to do that, and there’s no telling where you could have hidden them on your person.”

Stephanie stayed quiet and immobile. She felt the man straighten up again.

“Put your hands behind your back!”

Stephanie did as she was told. Then, before she knew what was happening, she felt herself being locked into handcuffs. It had happened so quickly that she didn’t comprehend until she heard the second metallic click. A bad situation was deteriorating. She’d never been in handcuffs, and they bit into her wrists. Worse yet, she felt even more vulnerable than she had before.

Stephanie was then yanked upright by the scruff of her neck and spun around. She eyed her assailant, watching as the man’s thin lips twisted back into a cruel, taunting smile, as if he were flaunting the fact that he was under marginal control.

Stephanie immediately recognized him. Although she’d never heard his voice until now, she’d seen him around the clinic grounds and in the cafeteria. She even knew his name and that he was the head of security. It had been in his office that she and Daniel had been photographed and had obtained their ID cards. He’d been at his desk at the time but had not said a word. Stephanie had purposefully avoided his silent, beady stare.

Kurt stepped out of the way and gestured toward the open door to the office. The gun had disappeared. Stephanie was only too happy to leave, but when she started walking back in the direction from which she’d originally come, Kurt grabbed her arm.

“Wrong way,” he snapped. When she turned to look at him, he pointed in the opposite direction.

“I want to go back to the laboratory,” Stephanie said. She tried to imbue her voice with authority, but it was difficult under the circumstances.

“I couldn’t care less what you want. Move!” Kurt gave her a forceful shove. Without her arms to help keep her balance, Stephanie nearly fell. Luckily, her feet stayed underneath her after the brush of a tissue-culture rack against her shoulder. Kurt gave her another push, and she stumbled ahead in the direction he’d indicated.

“I don’t know why you’re making such a big deal out of this,” Stephanie said, after regaining her composure somewhat. “I was just looking around in here. I was merely curious about the origin of the oocytes Dr. Saunders had provided us with.” Her mind was now churning in an internal debate whether she should follow Kurt’s orders or just collapse and refuse to move. If they weren’t going back to the lab, she wanted to stay in Cindy Drexler’s office, where there was the comfort of knowing the woman would be returning. Having no idea where they were headed terrified her, but she didn’t stop. What kept her moving was Kurt’s threat to shoot her. As crazy and wired as he seemed, she took it seriously.

“Trespassing in the egg room is a big deal,” Kurt responded scornfully, as if privy to her thoughts.

At the end of the room, they turned ninety degrees and continued to a door similar to the one Stephanie had entered, but at the opposite end of the room. Kurt pressed a button on its jamb and the heavy, safelike door whooshed open. Kurt gave Stephanie a rude shove through it. Unaccustomed to her arms being secured behind her back, it was all Stephanie could do to keep her footing. Stumbling ahead, she found herself in a long, narrow, stuccoed corridor that curved off to the left. It was meagerly illuminated with infrequent fluorescent fixtures mounted on the outer wall. It was also a stuffy, un-air-conditioned space.

Stephanie stopped. She tried to turn around, but Kurt shoved her forward with such force that she fell. Unable to put her hands out to break her fall, she landed on her shoulder, scraping her cheek on the cement floor. A moment later, he lifted her like a rag doll by grabbing a handful of her lab coat and blouse in the middle of her back. Once she was upright, he propelled her forward. Stephanie reconciled herself to walking. She recognized resisting was going to invite immediate disaster.

“I demand to speak to Dr. Wingate and Dr. Saunders,” Stephanie said, in a second attempt to be authoritative. Her fears were mounting as she wondered where this man was taking her. The damp warmth of the corridor suggested it was subterranean.

“In due course,” Kurt said, with a lecherous laugh that gave Stephanie a shiver.

It didn’t take Stephanie long before she guessed they were traveling in the same direction as the arcaded walkway that connected the laboratory building with the administration building. They just happened to be underground. Within a few minutes, they came to a regular, insulated fire door. When Kurt opened it, she saw that her assumption was correct. They were in the admin building basement. Stephanie remembered it from when she and Daniel got their IDs. With some relief, she now guessed they were heading to the security office, which also was soon confirmed.

“Down the hall!” Kurt commanded when they entered his office. He stayed behind her, out of her sight.

Stephanie passed a partially open door and caught a glimpse of a wall of television monitors. Kurt urged her on. At the end of the corridor, she stopped.

“You’ll notice we have a jail cell to the left and a bedroom to the right,” Kurt said mockingly. “It’s your choice.”

Stephanie didn’t answer. Instead, she stepped into the open cell. Kurt swung the barred door shut. It locked with a click that echoed off the concrete walls.

“What about the handcuffs?” Stephanie demanded.

“It’s best they are left on,” Kurt said. His cruel, thin-lipped smile had returned. “It’s for safety’s sake. The management doesn’t look kindly on prisoners doing themselves in.” Kurt laughed again. It was obvious he was enjoying himself. He started to turn back up the corridor but hesitated. Instead, he came back to stare in at Stephanie. “You’ve got a head in there, so feel free to use it. Don’t let me bother you.”

Stephanie turned to glance at the toilet. Not only was it completely exposed; it didn’t even have a seat. She looked back at Kurt and glared. “I want to see Dr. Wingate and Dr. Saunders immediately.”

“I’m afraid you are not in any position to give orders,” Kurt said mockingly. He glared at Stephanie before breaking off and disappearing back up the corridor.

Stephanie let out her breath and relaxed a degree with Kurt out of sight. She could only see a short distance up the hallway. Unable to look at her watch, she wondered what time it was. Daniel would have to start wondering where she was and start looking for her. In fact, maybe he was already. But then a new fear entered her mind: What if he was so angry at what she’d done that he didn’t care if she’d been locked up?

Kurt Hermann sat down at his desk and put out his forearms. He was quivering from unconsummated desire. Stephanie D’Agostino had turned him on excruciatingly. Unfortunately, the pleasure of having his hands on her firm yet soft femaleness had been all too fleeting, and he wanted a repeat. She’d acted as if she hadn’t enjoyed it, but he knew differently. Women were like that: one minute being provocative and the next minute pretending they didn’t like the consequences. It was all an act, a put-on, a joke.

For a few minutes, Kurt tried to think of ways to put off calling Saunders. What he would have liked most to do was not to call him at all. Dr. D’Agostino could just disappear. Hell, it was what she deserved. But he knew it wouldn’t work. Saunders would know, because Saunders understood that Kurt was aware of everyone who came in and out of the compound. If the woman doctor disappeared, Saunders would know Kurt was responsible or at least knew what had happened to her.

Calling on the discipline of his martial arts training, Kurt calmed himself. Within minutes, his muscles began to relax and his quivering stopped. Even his heart rate slowed to less than fifty beats per minute. He knew, because he frequently checked it. When he was fully in control, he got up and went into the video room.

The clock on the wall said it was twelve-forty-one. That meant that Spencer Wingate and Paul Saunders would be in the cafeteria. Kurt sat down and looked up at the bank of monitors. His eyes went to number twelve. Using the keyboard in front of him, he connected the joystick to minicam twelve and began to pan the room. Before finding his bosses, he found Daniel Lowell. Kurt zoomed in. The man was reading a scientific journal while feeding his face, completely oblivious to his surroundings. Across from him was Stephanie’s untouched tray. A slight sneer played on Kurt’s face. He had the man’s girlfriend locked up in his private jail cell after feeling her up, and the man had no clue whatsoever. What a pompous jerk!

Kurt zoomed back out and continued looking for Spencer and Paul. He found them at their usual table and with the usual bevy of female employees. They were jerks as well, since Kurt knew for the most part whom they were screwing, although more for Paul than Spencer, since Paul lived in the compound. To Kurt, most of the men of the world were jerks, including most of his commanding officers when he’d been in the service. It was a burden he had to bear.

Kurt reached for the phone and put in a call to the cafeteria supervisor. When he got her on the phone, he told her to tell Spencer and Paul there was a security emergency that necessitated their immediate presence in his office. He told her to say specifically, “It’s a major problem.” Within seconds of his replacing the receiver, Kurt saw the woman appear on the monitor. She was frantic. She tapped Spencer and Paul on the shoulder in turn and whispered in their respective ears. Both leaped up and, with worried expressions, made a beeline for the exit. Spencer was slightly in the lead, since he was the first one the cafeteria supervisor had approached.

With a few clicks on the keyboard, Kurt brought up the image of the jail cell on the monitor directly in his line of sight and switched his attention to it. Stephanie was pacing back and forth like a caged cat. It was as if she were purposefully taunting him with her body.

Unable to watch another second, Kurt abruptly stood up. He retreated to his desk to rely again on his training to calm himself. By the time Spencer Wingate and Paul Saunders breathlessly arrived, Kurt was back to his stoic self. All he moved was his eyes, as the two fertility doctors rushed up to his desk.

“What’s the major problem?” Spencer demanded. As the titular head of the clinic, Paul yielded to him. Spencer’s complexion was slightly flushed, as was Paul’s. The two men had run all the way from building three, which was more exercise than they were accustomed to. Both were panicked, because Kurt’s message had been the same one he’d communicated back when Federal marshals had besieged the Wingate Clinic in its Massachusetts incarnation.

Kurt enjoyed their anxiety as payback for the scant recognition they gave him for all his efforts with getting the new clinic’s security in line. He gestured for his bosses to be silent, then motioned for them to follow him as he led the way down to the video room. Once they were inside, he shut the door. He gestured for them to sit down in the two chairs present while he remained standing. He eyed them while basking in their anxious, undivided attention.

“What the hell is the emergency?” Spencer demanded, losing patience. “Out with it!”

“We had a break-in involving the egg room,” Kurt said. “An obvious espionage situation that has compromised the egg-procurement program.”

“No!” Paul exclaimed. He sat forward in his seat. The egg program was pivotal in his plans for the future of the clinic and his reputation.

Kurt nodded, enjoying drawing out the moment.

“Who?” Paul demanded. “Was it an inside job?”

“Yes and no,” Kurt responded ambiguously without elaborating.

“Come on!” Spencer complained. “This isn’t a goddamn guessing game.”

“The perpetrator was caught perusing the Oocyte Register and apprehended.”

“Good God!” Paul blurted. “This person was actually looking at the Register?”

Kurt pointed to the central monitor just above the counter. Stephanie had retreated back to sit on the iron cot. Unknowingly, she was looking almost directly into the minicam. It was clear she was distraught.

For a few minutes, silence reigned in the video room. All eyes stared at Stephanie.

“How come she’s not moving?” Spencer asked. “She’s all right, isn’t she?”

“She’s fine,” Kurt assured him.

“Why is her cheek bleeding?”

“She fell en route to the cell.”

“What did you do to her?” Spencer demanded.

“She wasn’t being cooperative. She needed a bit of encouragement.”

“Good Lord!” Spencer exclaimed. All in all, this was less of an emergency than he had feared, but it was still bad enough. “How come her arms are behind her back?” Spencer asked.

“She’s handcuffed,” Kurt said.

“Handcuffed?” Spencer questioned. “Isn’t that a bit heavy-handed? Although, with your history, we should be thankful you didn’t shoot her on the spot.”

“Spencer,” Paul said. “We should be thankful for Kurt’s vigilance, not critical.”

“It is standard operating procedure to cuff an individual when they are apprehended,” Kurt snapped.

“Yeah, but she’s in a jail cell, for Christ’s sake,” Spencer said. “You could have taken the handcuffs off.”

“Forget the handcuffs for the moment,” Paul suggested. “Let’s worry about the implications of her behavior. I don’t like the fact that she was in the egg room, much less having her looking at the register. She’s been less than complimentary about our operation, particularly in regard to our stem-cell therapy.”

“She is a bit high and mighty,” Spencer admitted.

“I don’t want her upsetting our oocyte program, not that there’s a lot she can do here in the Bahamas,” Paul said. “It’s not like we’re back in the States. But she could still make waves and get us some bad publicity, which might impinge on our uterine-rental recruitment efforts and then our bottom line. We’ve got to make sure that doesn’t happen.”

“Maybe that’s why Lowell and she are here,” Spencer suggested. “Maybe this treatment rigmarole they are doing is all an elaborate ruse. They could be industrial spies, intent on stealing our thunder.”

“They’re for real,” Paul said.

“How can you be so sure?” Spencer said, looking away from Stephanie’s image on the monitor and directing his attention to Paul. “You’re rather gullible when it comes to dealing with real researchers.”

“I beg your pardon!” Paul snapped.

“Oh, don’t be so sensitive,” Spencer responded. “You know what I mean. These people have real Ph.D.s.”

“Which might account for their lack of creativity,” Paul responded. “You don’t need a Ph.D. to do groundbreaking science. But, be that as it may, I can assure you that these people are not faking what they are doing. I’ve seen with my own eyes that this HTSR is impressive.”

“They could still be fooling you. That’s my point. They are professional researchers, and you’re not.”

Paul glanced away for a moment to keep from getting mad. Spencer was the last person in the world who should be suggesting he was an authority on who was and who wasn’t a researcher. Spencer knew nothing about research. He was a mere businessman in doctor’s clothing-and not even that good a businessman.

After a calming breath, Paul looked back at his titular boss and said, “I know they are doing real, honest-to-goodness, goal-directed cellular manipulations, because I took some of the cells into which they had patched some of Christ’s DNA. The cells are amazing and extremely viable. I’ve used them myself to see if they work, and they do.”

“Wait a second,” Spencer said. “You’re not going to sit there and say you’ve proved these cells have Christ’s DNA.”

“Of course not.” Paul struggled to keep his composure. At times, discussing biomolecular science with Spencer was like talking with a five-year-old. “There’s no test for ‘Christness.’ What I’m trying to tell you is that they brought with them a culture of fibroblasts from the person with Parkinson’s disease whom they are planning on treating. Within these cells, they have swapped out the defective genes with genes they have been able to construct from DNA they’ve extracted from their sample of the Shroud of Turin. They’ve already done all this, and now they are on their way to make the actual treatment cells. It’s true. There’s absolutely no doubt in my mind this is what they are doing. I’m one hundred percent certain. Trust me!”

“All right, all right,” Spencer repeated. “Since you have been in the lab with them, I suppose I have to take your word they’re here for a legitimate therapeutic mission. But that accepted, it begs the issue of the patient’s identity, about which I also took your word. You said you were going to find out who the patient is. Here we are a little more than a week away from our visitors’ scheduled treatment D-day, and we’re still in the dark.”

“Well, that’s another problem.”

“Yeah, but it is associated. If we don’t have a name soon, we’re not going to have a financial windfall in this affair, that’s for damn sure. What’s the problem with finding out the identity? That’s not asking that much.”

Paul looked at Kurt. “Tell him!”

Kurt cleared his throat. “It’s been a more difficult assignment than I had anticipated. We had their apartment and place of business searched before they even got to Nassau. While they have been here, we’ve gotten ahold of their laptops and had our computer nerd check their hard drives: nothing. On the positive side, just today I got a bug in the woman’s cell phone. I’ve been trying to get ahold of it from day one, but she has been uncooperative. Never once did she let it out of her sight.”

“You planted the bug while she’s been in your custody?” Spencer asked. “Aren’t you worried she’d be suspicious?”

“No,” Kurt said. “The bug went in before I apprehended her. Today, for the first time, she left her cell phone in the lab when she went to the cafeteria. I’d just finished when she returned unexpectedly to break into the egg room. I was following her when she entered.”

“Then why didn’t you stop her before she got in?” Spencer asked.

“I wanted to catch her flagrante delicto,” Kurt said, as a lewd smile formed at the corners of his mouth.

“I suppose I wouldn’t mind catching her flagrante delicto myself,” Spencer said, with an equivalent smile.

“With the bug in the cell phone, we should be in good shape,” Paul said. “From the beginning, Kurt felt monitoring the cell phone was going to give us the patient’s identity.”

“Is that true?” Spencer asked.

“Yes,” Kurt said simply. “But we have another option. With her in our custody, we could demand she tell us the name as a condition of her release.”

The two Wingate Clinic principals eyed each other while they pondered Kurt’s suggestion. It was Spencer who responded first with a shake of his head: “I don’t like the idea.”

“Why?” Paul asked.

“Mainly because I don’t think they would tell us, and it would tip our hand about how much we want the name,” Spencer said. “Obviously, keeping the patient’s identity a secret is mighty important to them; otherwise, we’d know it already. At this point, with as much progress as you’ve said they’ve made in the lab, they could possibly pack up and go somewhere else for the final treatment. I don’t want to jeopardize their second twenty-two-and-a-half-K payment. It’s hardly a windfall, but it’s something. Besides, they’ll know we’re bluffing. We can’t keep her in jail unless we throw him in there as well, which we can’t do, and he’ll be yelling bloody murder as soon as he finds out where she is and how she’s been treated.”

“You’ve made good points,” Paul responded. “I agree with you, and I’d prefer the condition of her release simply to be centered on a promise of confidentiality, which is reasonable under the circumstances. She can have her own opinions, but she should keep them to herself. My sense is that Dr. Lowell will back us on this. I’ve felt he’s always trying to tone down her arrogance.”

Spencer looked up at Kurt. “So, you’re optimistic about finding out the patient’s identity with the bug in the phone?”

Kurt nodded.

“I think we should stick to that,” Spencer said. “And we’ll press the confidentiality issue.”

“Agreed,” Paul said. “And speaking of Dr. Lowell, where is he?”

“He’s in the cafeteria,” Kurt said. His eyes rose up to monitor twelve. “At least, he was a few minutes ago.”

“I think it is significant that Dr. D’Agostino was by herself when she went into the egg room,” Paul said.

“How so?” Spencer asked.

“My guess would be that Dr. Lowell had no idea what she was doing.”

“You might be right,” Spencer said.

“Dr. Lowell is on his way to the lab,” Kurt said. He pointed to the appropriate monitor, and all eyes went to it. Daniel was walking with a quick, determined gait from building three to building one, with a hand clasped against the collection of pens and pencils in his breast pocket. He reached building one and disappeared through the door.

“Where is the lab monitor?” Paul asked. Kurt pointed. They watched as Daniel appeared stage left. Spencer commented that he appeared to be searching for Stephanie. Kurt used the joystick to follow him. After checking the lab bench area that he and Stephanie used, Daniel looked into their assigned office. He even stuck his head into the ladies’ room. He then made a beeline toward Megan Finnigan’s office.

“I think he would have gone down to the egg room if he knew that’s where she went,” Paul said.

“A point well taken,” Spencer said. “I bet you’re right.”

Paul picked up the phone on the counter and punched in Megan’s extension. “I’ll tell the lab supervisor where Dr. Lowell can find his collaborator.”

“Or whatever the hell their relationship is,” Spencer said scornfully. “I can’t figure it out. By the way, Kurt, how was she able to get into the egg room?”

“She used her Wingate ID,” Kurt said. “Access has yet to be restricted, even though it was on the security punch list I presented to the administration a month ago.”

“That’s my fault,” Paul said, hanging up from his terse conversation with Megan Finnigan. “It slipped my mind getting the clinic up and running. Besides, we never planned on outsiders using the lab, and it didn’t cross my mind when doctors Lowell and D’Agostino got here.”

Spencer got up out of his chair. “Let’s go down and have a chat with the alluring Dr. D’Agostino before Dr. Lowell gets here. It might help smooth the negotiation. Kurt, I want you to stay away for the moment.”

The two doctors stepped out into the hall and started down toward the cell.

“This is a weird turn of events,” Spencer whispered. “But it is certainly a lot better than I feared when we were running over here.”