The God Gene: A Novel Read online

  Laura had been thinking about that. “What if it showed some sort of defect in Mozi’s genome, something that would doom her to a premature death?”

  Rick gave his head another shake. “If you had some emotional attachment to the monkey, sure you’d be upset. But that wouldn’t make you erase all the data. Pretty obvious Keith didn’t want anyone else to see what he’d seen. But why not?”

  The waitress returned with the drinks and Laura asked for the crispy brussels sprouts while Rick ordered the pulled pork sandwich.

  As the waitress left, Laura had an awful thought. “What if Keith killed Mozi to keep her genome a secret?”

  Rick’s lips twisted. “Thought of that. But not likely with the way everybody says he doted on her.” He went silent for a few heartbeats, then shook his head again. “Doesn’t jibe. He wouldn’t have to kill Mozi to keep her genome secret—just keep anyone else from sequencing her DNA. Which would be easy enough to do.”

  “Then why is she dead?”

  “The zillion-dollar question.”

  They lapsed into silence. Rick broke it with: “Grady said Mozi had been kept at a lab for a while.”

  “A primatarium.”

  “Why don’t we make that the next stop?”

  Laura couldn’t see it. “What for?”

  “It may be a wild goose chase, but I’m figuring one of the vets there must have examined her. Maybe he can tell us something.”

  “Or she,” Laura said.

  “Or she.”

  Their food arrived.

  Rick looked askance at her plate. “Brussels sprouts? Really? My mother used to make us eat those when I was a kid. Hated them.”

  “So you said the first day we met.”

  “I did?”

  “Uh-huh. You told me you didn’t like dogs, cats, children, spectator sports, or brussels sprouts.”

  He looked embarrassed. “Well, I make an exception for Marissa in the children category, but I stand firm on the sprouts.”

  “Your mother probably boiled them. These are roasted with olive oil and asiago. Try one.”

  “No, thanks. I’ll pass.”

  She pointed her fork at him. “Try. One. Now.”

  Making a face, he speared one of the halved sprouts and popped it into his mouth. A chew. Another chew. And then his face lit.

  “Hey, these are good.”

  “See?”

  He quickly speared and devoured two more, then came back for thirds.

  “Hey,” she said, pulling her plate away. “Leave some for me. You’ve got your pulled pork.”

  “Which you’re gonna try.”

  “Nope. I don’t think I could eat anything that was ‘pulled.’”

  He sipped his beer. “You need to loosen up. You don’t like baseball because the players spit, you don’t like—”

  “Can we not talk about spitting while I eat?”

  “Sorry. Yeah, let’s get to it. Grady mentioned Schelling Pharma. Our dad used to work for them, so no surprise at the choice. But they’re global. All over the place. Where did Keith house Mozi? I should have asked.”

  Laura realized she couldn’t put off seeing Emilie any longer.

  “Well, our hipster pal is off to a meeting,” she said as Rick raised his sandwich, “so we’ll save that for tomorrow?”

  He looked at her over his bitus interruptus. “You’ve got someplace you need to be?”

  “Yeah.”

  2

  NORTHPORT, NEW YORK

  Laura managed to put off telling Rick about the ikhar until they reached the VA hospital, but couldn’t hold out any longer. If she couldn’t trust him about this, she couldn’t trust anyone.

  “You know the friend I visited here yesterday?” she said as he pulled into a parking spot.

  Her voice sounded as shaky as her insides. She clasped her hands to stifle the tremor that had started. It had to have worked—had to.

  “Something wrong?”

  “I sneaked her a dose of the ikhar during my visit.”

  He jerked upright in his seat. “What? How—?”

  “It came Tuesday.”

  “Why didn’t you say something?”

  “I’m saying it now.”

  He unlatched his door. “Let’s go. I’ll walk you inside.”

  “I thought you didn’t—”

  “This is different—way different.”

  She sat there. She’d been dying to know all day, had wanted a firsthand look, and now the moment had arrived. So why was it so hard to get out of the car?

  Rick opened her door, took her hand, and helped her out.

  “You still don’t believe, do you.”

  “It’s hard.”

  “I know,” he said softly. “I know.”

  He took her arm as they crossed the parking lot and held the front door for her.

  “Just follow my lead,” she whispered as she slipped past him into the lobby.

  She didn’t recognize the receptionist at the desk—maybe twenty, short-short black hair, tiny stud above her left nostril—but noted the odd spelling on her nameplate: Gale.

  “Hi. I’m Laura Fanning. I was volunteering here yesterday and forgot my reading glasses.”

  Out of the corner of her eye she caught Rick’s raised eyebrow but didn’t acknowledge it.

  Gale smiled and said, “I’ll check the lost-and-found box.”

  “If I left them anywhere, it would be in Emilie Lantz’s room.”

  The receptionist froze. “You visited Emilie yesterday?”

  “Yes. I read to her once or twice a week.”

  Gale looked agitated. “How—how was she when you left?”

  “Same as always.” Laura put on a puzzled look to hide her growing excitement. No doubt about it: Something had happened. “Is anything wrong?”

  “No … yes … no. I mean, she’s cured!” Her words came in a rush. “Okay, I shouldn’t say she’s cured because nobody’s said she’s cured yet but what else can you call it? They found her walking up and down the hall outside her room this morning screaming for everyone to come see!”

  Laura had to lean against the counter for support. Yes!

  “Standing? She couldn’t even hold up a paperback when I left her.”

  “I know, right? Yet she woke up completely cured. It’s a miracle!”

  Miracle … how many times had she heard that word in the past couple of months?

  “Can I see her?”

  Gale checked her computer screen. “She’s on her way to radiology. They’re running scads of tests on her. You know—MRIs, labs, the works.”

  I’ll bet, Laura thought.

  Disappointment dampened her elation. Though it should have been enough to know that Emilie had been cured, a part of her needed to see her on her feet. But she hid it.

  “Okay, I’ll come back later.”

  “Don’t you want me to check for your glasses?”

  “They can wait.”

  Laura suddenly wanted out of here. But as she turned toward the door, an unfamiliar voice rang through the lobby.

  “Laura! Laura!”

  She turned to find a grinning Emilie being pushed down the hall in a wheelchair by an aide. She motioned to the aide to stop. And then she levered herself to her feet.

  “Can you believe it?” she cried, grinning as she stood with spread arms. “Can you fucking believe it?”

  “Oh, god!” was all Laura could manage before her throat locked.

  And then she found herself hurrying down the hall as Emilie stumbled toward her. They wrapped their arms around each other and both began to sob.

  Finally Laura broke the clinch and wiped her eyes. Had to appear clueless …

  “Emilie … what … how?”

  “I don’t know! Nobody knows! And you know what? I don’t care!” She laughed. “Maybe it was that apple juice you gave me yesterday!”

  No, no, no! Laura didn’t want her even joking about that. Be cool. Go with it …

  �
��Well, I … I left the bottle for you. If that’s it, maybe you can spread it around to the other patients.”

  Another laugh. “Maybe I will!”

  “Excuse me, ma’am,” said the aide. “I’m supposed to have you in radiology.”

  “Okay, okay.” Emilie squeezed Laura’s hands. “We’ll have to get together after I get out of here.”

  “Yes, def,” Laura said, knowing she couldn’t let that happen. She might let something slip.

  They exchanged waves as Emilie was wheeled away; then, all wobble-kneed, she returned to the lobby. Without waiting for Rick, she hurried out the door and across the parking lot. She was aware of him close behind her but more aware of the pressure building in her chest. The door locks popped as she approached the pickup, but before she could climb inside, she burst into tears.

  “You okay?” Rick said as he came up beside her.

  She nodded and waved a hand for him to give her a moment, then leaned against him and sobbed. His arms went around her and she clung to him. And kept clinging after she’d regained control. It reminded her of that night in Kirkwall when they’d both had too much to drink. Where would they be now, relationship-wise, if they hadn’t been interrupted? As much as she liked the clinch, she finally pushed away.

  “Sorry.”

  “No apology necessary.”

  “I’m not usually this emotional. It’s just…” Her throat tightened again. “It’s just so wonderful to see her on her feet … cured.”

  Rick stared at her. “After all you’ve seen, you’re still surprised?”

  Good question. She’d witnessed two impossible cures back to back in the Stony Brook PICU, so why had Emilie’s hit her like a runaway train?

  “Well, the ikhar could’ve spoiled in transit.”

  A dubious look. “That really it?”

  “I mean, the possibility was in the back of my mind.” Way back. “Okay, I admit it: I can’t help it. There’s no question that it works and yet I can’t wrap my mind around the reality of it. All science and reason says it can’t work, and yet it does.”

  A wry smile. “Well, if it’s gonna cause you such torment, maybe you should just flush the next dose down the toilet.”

  “You know damn well that’s not going to happen.”

  “I do. But more importantly, how are you going to keep it secret?”

  “By changing the places where I volunteer. I’ve got months to find my next ‘patient.’”

  “Just be careful,” he said, his tone now grave. “Someone connects the dots, life as you know it is over. If people think you have a supply of the real panacea—and once that thought gets in their heads, convincing them otherwise will be damn near impossible—they’ll hound you to the ends of the earth.”

  The truth of that made her stomach crawl. Because Marissa would be involved as well. But she couldn’t discard a panacea. Too many desperate people out there …

  “I’ll be careful.”

  “Great. And meanwhile…” He tilted his head back and thumbed his nose at the sky.

  She had to smile. “That’s for the vast, cool, unsympathetic intellects out there?”

  “You got it.”

  Early on she’d dismissed Rick’s wild theory that sapience was so rare in the universe that it attracted attention—the wrong kind. As a result, humans had become the playthings of “intellects vast, cool, and unsympathetic”—a phrase he’d snagged from H. G. Wells. He claimed the panacea—the ikhar—had been created by these intellects to throw a monkey wrench into all of humankind’s concepts of a knowable universe by breaking all the rules.

  Ridiculous, right?

  But that blithe certainty had been turned on its pointy little head. After seeing the ikhar cure a raging viral meningitis, a cardiomyopathy, and now end-stage MS, she had to wonder if maybe it had truly originated, as Rick put it, outside.

  Like a little blue crab dropped into a tropical fish tank.

  Laura had yet to buy totally into Rick’s scenario, but just for fun she mimicked his gesture.

  Rick gave her shoulder a friendly squeeze. “Way to go. But ‘intellects, vast, cool, and unsympathetic’ is kind of unwieldy, don’t you think? They need a handy acronym, so I’ve settled on ‘ICE.’”

  “ICE … meaning?”

  “Intrusive Cosmic Entities. They even have a theme song.” He hummed a stuttering bass line.

  “That’s not…?”

  “Uh-huh,” he said, nodding. “‘Ice Ice Baby.’”

  Laura couldn’t help laughing. She never knew what to expect from Rick.

  “Feeling better?” he said.

  “I wasn’t feeling bad. Not really. Just a lot of pent-up emotion. When Clotilde said she’d be sending me an occasional dose, I never realized the burden it would carry. It means every so often I can dramatically change the course of a life for the better, provide a future where there wasn’t one. The responsibility is … daunting.”

  “Yeah, but Clotilde knew what she was doing. She chose a healer.”

  “Some healer. One who works with dead people.”

  “One who’s been hiding behind dead people. Time to enter the land of the living.”

  Which was just what she intended to do.

  FRIDAY

  May 20

  1

  MAPUTO, MOZAMBIQUE

  “It’s settled, then?” Amaury said after they’d tied up the Sorcière. “You will be here on this very dock first thing Sunday morning.”

  Marten Jeukens nodded as he hefted his duffel bag’s strap onto his shoulder. “I have business later today and tomorrow, but if all goes well, I’ll be here bright and early on Sunday.”

  Business … Amaury wondered just what that might be. Nothing connected with their island, he hoped. All along the 1,100-kilometer route from Toliara the Afrikaner had seemed to spend more time on his satellite phone than off it, always near the bow or the stern, out of earshot. Whatever he was cooking up, he didn’t want Amaury to know about it.

  But Amaury had been doing a little cooking of his own. He’d come up with a scheme that would allow him to corner the market on these little monkeys. All commerce was ruled by supply and demand. Low supply and high demand pushed up the price. So the key was to control the supply. This would be easy when he first brought the creatures to market, but after a while, exclusive access to the island wouldn’t matter. Inevitably other dealers in exotics would buy a male and a female from him and start breeding their own. As the supply rose, competition would put downward pressure on prices.

  So Amaury had come up with the idea of selling only males at first. This would not hurt the population on the island because a single male could impregnate many females. Later, as the profits started rolling in, he would import females and sell them only after he’d had them spayed.

  But while selling the first primates, and establishing a market for them, he would start a breeding program. He knew from experience how labor intensive that could be with simians, but he couldn’t predict how long he’d have access to the island. He might have years, or maybe only a few months. It all depended on how fast the UN acted once it got wind of a new species that might be endangered. Usually it reacted slowly, but one never knew. He must be prepared in the event his source was shut down.

  At times Amaury couldn’t help being amazed by his own brilliance.

  But what was Jeukens up to?

  Amaury took solace in the fact that the Afrikaner had seemed sincere when he’d said he didn’t care if the monkeys were put on the market.

  “I will tell you honestly, monsieur: If you are not here on the dock Sunday morning, I must leave without you. I will regret doing so, but you must understand that I cannot let too much time pass. Who knows if someone else might stumble across the island?”

  This did not seem to faze Jeukens in the least. In fact, he seemed somewhat distracted, as if this “business” he was off to was suddenly more important than the island he had been so intent on finding.

 
“‘Don’t think twice, it’s all right.’”

  Amaury had to smile. “Even I know that one! But—”

  “Truly, do not give it a second thought. If I’m not here, by all means, sail without me. I will catch up with you.”

  With that he stepped onto the dock and walked away without a backward glance.

  I will catch up with you…? How did he intend to do that? Hire a speedboat?

  A secretive, sinister fellow, this Jeukens. Amaury would give much to know what was going on inside that bald head.

  2

  MELVILLE, NEW YORK

  “You’re late,” Laura said as Rick unfolded himself from the driver’s seat of his SUV. She’d been feeling a little anxious waiting for him. Rick was never late.

  “Got lost.”

  “Ever hear of Waze?”

  “Waze is for wimps.”

  Rick had offered to pick her up but she’d thought that a ridiculous waste of time. He lived to the northwest, in Westchester, over an hour’s ride to Melville, while she lived another thirty miles farther east. They’d decided to meet in the Schelling parking lot.

  “I got delayed at home as well,” he said. “Thought the fact that my father had been a Schelling executive back in the day would open doors, but seems nobody here’s ever heard of him. He worked at the corporate headquarters in Switzerland so I guess I shouldn’t be surprised.”

  “But you did get us in, right?”

  He nodded. “Yup. Managed to talk my way through to their vivarium and the gal there remembers my brother and Mozi. She’s heard about Keith’s disappearance and seems eager to help.”

  The Schelling Pharma research facility was one of many nondescript functional buildings occupying a huge industrial park just off the LIE. The Schelling structure was a three-story layer cake of alternating bands of red brick and mirrored glass.

  The receptionist found Rick’s name on her list and called the vivarium. A few minutes later a chunky young Asian woman in a lab coat exited an elevator. She had a blinding smile and wore her black hair in a short bob with razor-sharp bangs.

  “Hi, I’m Mitoki Toda,” she said, extending her hand toward Rick. Her English was accent free. “You’re Doctor Somers’s brother?”