THE TOUCHDOWN

GENE

by

Thomas Hoover

Fireship Press

www.FireshipPress.com

The Touchdown Gene - Copyright © 2011 by Thomas Hoover

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotation embodied in critical articles and reviews.

ISBN:  978-1-61179-117-4

BISAC Subject Headings:

FIC002000 - FICTION / Action & Adventure

FIC035000 - FICTION / Medical

FIC038000 - FICTION / Sports

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1.0

Bonaire

Dawn ambushes you this close to the Equator, with sunshine suddenly pouring in as though you’d opened a blind. With the same swiftness, a squall from the surrounding Atlantic can assault the naked island with a dreadful vengeance.

This morning both were about to happen. A scorching sun was billowing up in the east, while a foreboding bank of clouds, dark as squid ink, propelled in from the west, bent on extinguishing the promised sheen of dawn.

On a high-school soccer field in mid-island the New York Wolverines, an NFL franchise that had seen much better days, was warming up for a dawn practice before the heat set in. Near the soccer field and ignored by the guidebooks, there was a large, high-tech research laboratory for Nolan Pharmaceuticals, a prominent American drug company. And it so happened that this summer Bonaire had turned out to be the perfect location for Nolan Pharma to undertake a “clinical trial” nobody wanted the FDA—or anyone else—to hear about.

The practice began pretty much like every other practice, but it was not to end that way.

The Wolverine players were in crisp blue and white practice uniforms. The offensive players wore white jerseys with blue numbers; defense wore blue jerseys with white numbers. All of the players wore the distinctive, and once proud, Wolverine silver and blue helmets. They seemed oblivious to the lush tropical setting as they warmed up with stretching exercises and “gassers”—runs across the width of the football field that slowly built in speed from a mild jog to a full-out sprint.

They then scattered into subgroups and jogged over to their respective position coaches. Offensive linemen began slamming the blocking sled, snapping the padded targets back with a protesting twang from the supporting coiled springs. Defensive linemen practiced their primary pass-rush techniques—bull rush, spin move, swim move—over and over, first in slow motion then with increasing speed.

The running backs were off to the side, prancing through rope squares like oversized folk dancers. Behind them, the linebackers were practicing their footwork—gliding parallel to a line of dummies, then instantly shooting forward in a hitting position as if a ball carrier was coming through that hole.

The fragmented team slowly began to reassemble as the practice continued.

The linebackers joined the defensive linemen to cover individual responsibilities for the various Wolverine defenses. The tight ends and wide receivers jogged over to the quarterbacks to work on pass patterns. Soon these players were joined by the defensive backs, so the receivers could run against coverage and the rookies on both sides of the ball could get a further introduction to the complexity and unbelievable speed with which the pro game is played.

Soon the running backs came over to work on swing-passes with the quarterbacks, receivers and defensive backs; and finally both the offensive and defensive linemen came over for some full-team, non-contact, dummy signal drills.

The team had now reassembled into a single cohesive unit.

On the surface, everything seemed perfectly normal—until the defensive linemen good-naturedly taunted the offensive line by dropping down for fifty one-handed pushups, and did so with breathtaking ease.

As the brief morning haze quickly burned away, the grizzled old coach, Cap Hunter, his car-wreck of a face a testimony to what forty years of close companionship with Wild Turkey can do for you, watched in stomach-churning amazement. Several months ago, the entire team had been notorious out-of-shape losers. Now everyone in the preseason two-a-day practices had virtually become an Olympic-caliber athlete. The only problem was the recent onset of side effects and Cap Hunter was afraid, very afraid, of what unknowns loomed.

But when you’re sixty-seven years old and working at the last decent coaching job you could ever reasonably hope to have—and that only because the team owner, Buck Press, was your ex brother-in-law—then you find it prudent to go along with the owner’s desperate Hail Mary and you push the envelope.

He watched as the equatorial sun burst through the bougainvillea trees to the east and then whistled the team to assemble. While they were gathering, he looked over the three scientists from Nolan Pharma’s New Jersey research lab in the front row of the stands. They were the thirty-something whiz kids who had brought about this sports miracle—if that’s what it turned out to be. Recently, however, it was starting to feel like miracles came with a price.

The research team leader, Harley Ryan, was tall, with dark hair and eyes, and a high forehead that reminded you of some in-bred British aristocrat. He was part of a subsidiary of Nolan Pharma called Gene-Tech, which had acquired the company, Gene Solutions, that he and three other Penn graduates had formed after graduation.

Number two on the team was Dr. Rachel Wu. From the Mandarin stock of Northern China, she was unusually tall even by the standards of her heritage. Cap speculated that in another life, Rachel Wu would have been a dark beauty, with the body of a SI swimsuit model, who would probably play soccer in spike heels.

The third member of the team, Timothy Collins, was a sandy-haired, teddy bear who was perpetually easy going. Cap suspected Harley considered him to lack the killer attitude that the project required since he had clearly been marginalized, made into an out-of-the-loop gofer.

Cap heard there had been a fourth scientist in the group that founded the original Gene Solutions. Her name was Dr. Charlize Russell. She had her own lab in New York and was totally unaffiliated with the Bonaire project. Word was, she and Harley had once been “partners”, but that was another life.

The three had been on Bonaire, along with the Wolverines, for only five months, but they appeared to be closing in on . . . he wasn’t quite sure what, and that was beginning to scare the hell out of him.

The position coaches began lining up their players for a special, timed, hundred-meter race, which Harley and Rachel came over to monitor. Cap normally used the standard timed 40-yard dash, but the researchers had insisted on lengthening it to 100 meters. Rachel pulled out a stopwatch as they lined up. They ran in waves. First, came the offensive linemen, then defensive linemen, then linebackers, defensive backs, offensive ends, and finally running backs and quarterbacks. What was astonishing was that at the sound of the whistle each group burst out like gazelles—even the linemen.

The best time so far was 9.59 seconds by the quarterback Dutch Mathis. In a different venue, it would have been an Olympic record—and he was running in a helmet and full pads.

It was over in a flash. Dutch pulled in with barely a change in respiration, easily edging out the running backs, then paused to nonchalantly scrape the dew-generated mud off his cleats.

“Jesus,” Rachel marveled as she inscribed the time on her laptop, “he shaved another tenth of a second off the hundred meter. They’re getting faster every day.”

“This is all too incredible,” Harley agreed. “They’re starting to look too good. If they’re this hot when the season starts, we’re gonna get accused of doping. Maybe we ought to start holding them back.”

“Seems a little late for that,” she noted grimly. The truth was, nobody could “hold them back” or control them in any way once they got going.

When the data collection was over, Harley and Rachel joined Tim in the stands and the scrimmage was set to begin.

“I don’t like the looks of this weather,” Tim was saying as they settled in. “I think we’d better bag all the laptops. This could get ugly.”

“Yes, do it now,” Harley charged.

Tim’s words were more prophetic than he could have dreamed. The sun had a few glorious moments left but then the fast-moving cloud bank rolling in from the West enveloped the sky. In seconds, the field went ominously black.

The structured Wolverine offensive and defensive formations immediately dissolved into hostile turmoil and the players began jostling each other, barking trash talk and grunts.

Suddenly a cacophony of thunder rocked the landscape, after which a pounding sheet of rain swept in and the field turned even blacker. Since it was not intended for nighttime play, it had no lights.

As the storm assaulted the players, Hunter sensed the mood and feared that violence loomed. They were posturing menacingly. God, he needed to get everybody into the locker room now and turn on the lights; but it was too late. He’d lost control a time or two before, but this looked to be the worst yet.

As Harley, Rachel, and Tim were frantically double-bagging their laptops, the din from the field was growing.

“Up yours,” erupted a loud burst in the dark, echoing across the space.

“Screw you” bellowed a fierce reply.

Somebody apparently took a swing at somebody, since a roar like a lynch mob suddenly went up, its intensity immediately swelling into a chorus of battle cries. When Cap desperately tried whistling them into order, they just ignored him.

“Jesus!” Cap knew that if football players would not automatically stop at hearing a whistle—something that had been conditioned into them since childhood—there was nothing left he could do. It was as if the players were now moving in a world of their own.

Then it happened. The team snapped en masse and a massive brawl erupted. Jagged strokes of lightening showed it was a pure melee.

As thunder boomed again, temporarily drowning out the ruckus from the field, Harley Ryan was watching with plenty of aggressive impulses of his own. He was actually feeling an urge to join in. Rachel, for her part, was shocked speechless. Tim was wild-eyed.

“My God, Harley,” he shouted, “somebody’s got to make them stop!”

Just then, a prolonged burst of sheet lightning illuminated the field long enough for everyone to see a 350-pound lineman named “Tiny” Bledsoe lift a running back named James “J.D.” Knight above his head and fling him down onto the rain-swept mud. A long moment passed, but J.D. didn’t move. Cap rushed up and hovered over him as two team medics hurried across the field bringing an immobilization stretcher. When they arrived, they talked to J.D. for a moment, and then one said something to Cap.

“Then call for a damn ambulance,” Cap roared.

“Oh Christ,” Tim wailed, “what have we done!”

Then, as Harley watched in anger and dismay, Cap Hunter came charging across the field toward him, murder in his eyes.

“Harley, dammit, this whole thing has gone to hell,” he gasped, choking back his pent-up months of contempt. “Get out there and…”

”I don’t appreciate your damn tone,” Harley snarled, as though caught up in the same madness as the players. “I think I should teach you some manners.”

“Harley, you prick, J.D. can’t move his legs. Says there’s no feeling. This happened because of you. Whatever the hell you’ve done, I want it un-done.”

“You alcoholic old fart.” He seized Cap by the throat. “I’ve just performed a miracle of medical science and all you can do is bitch.”

Without blinking, Cap Hunter drove a gnarled fist into Harley’s stomach, sending him reeling backward into the wet wooden bleachers. Then he whirled on a horrified Rachel and Tim.

“We’ve got our pre-season opener staring us in the face. You damned well better fix this before then or I might just turn the boys loose on you and let them tear you apart. A couple more days and that’s where they could be.”

Harley groaned and pulled himself up.

“There’s only one thing, Harley,” Tim declared, in a voice that had never been so serious, or frightened. “You know it as well as I do. We’ve got to get Charlize down here. Right away. She’s way ahead of everybody on the gene-splicing curve. Lamar Nolan can reassign her.”

“Harley, think about it,” Rachel concurred, clearly a hard call for her, standing up to Harley. “Charlie doesn’t have to know any details of…”

“Screw Charlie,” he exploded. “What’s wrong with you two! We can fix this. I don’t want anybody else down here.”

Cap Hunter, who’d been listening, was pulling out his cell phone. “Yeah, well, we’re gonna damn well see about that. I’m making the call to New York. Right now.”

Out in the rain, the Wolverines still milled in disarray; but there was something about it that was not entirely random. They were coalescing into something like a force. Tim and Rachel both noticed it and exchanged disturbed glances.

“Rach,” Tim declared, his voice quivering, “unless something happens soon, this . . . we’ve created killing machines. And we don’t have the foggiest idea what to do about it.”

BOOK ONE

DAY ONE: New York

Chapter One

August 6 Tuesday, 10:40AM

Downtown Manhattan Hospital

The same morning, almost two thousand miles to the north, Dr. Charlize Russell was at her immaculate laboratory in New York’s Downtown Manhattan Research Hospital. The way she looked at it, medical science was ninety-nine percent drudgery and disappointment, and one percent pure triumph. Today Charlie had her fingers crossed for a one-percenter.

She was in a brightly lit rehab room next door to her lab and she’d just begun helping a young blond girl named Katherine Blont, recently turned 7 years, out of a wheelchair.

“You can do it, Katy,” she was coaching as she held her breath, wanting to believe but still trembling.

She held the child’s hands, leaned over, and whispered, “Okay, just one step. For me.”

“I’m . . . I’m afraid.” Katy’s tiny voice was quivering.

“Just come to me, sweetie. I won’t let go of you.” She was using every ounce of self-control to sound confident.

“Okay, Dr. Russell, I’ll try.”

She lifted her right foot, beamed in amazement, and took a step across the gray vinyl tiles.

“Oh,” she gasped and took another, then another. With each step, she beamed an additional level of pride, still gripping Charlie’s hands but the clasp becoming looser.

“It’s like I’m a baby again,” she blurted, eyes sparkling in disbelief, “learning to walk, but this time I won’t forget.”

In that moment, Charlize knew that all her struggles were worth it. She was sure, at an instinctive level, that she was this close to nailing the genetic trick to curing muscular dystrophy. Turns out you can change the crappy hand God dealt you.

“Yes, honey, and you’re making us all so proud of –”

“Oh, my God . . .” The door burst open and her assistant Deirdre came charging across the room to switch on a TV monitor. She was one of two grad-student assistants from Columbia, both young women in their mid-twenties, who worked at network terminals in the next room running DNA sequences.

“Shirley tipped me off. I was just down there to check it out. You gotta see this. God, you just know the suits are freaking.”

She tuned to a local news channel. It showed a mob of people and one person with a bullhorn. In New York, the bullhorn requires a permit but you’ve got till the cops show up to use it without one. No cops were around but clearly, somebody had tipped off the news media. Klieg lights blazed.

“My God, Dee Dee, that looks like –”

“It is. They’re right out front, on the East Broadway steps. Dr. Russell, they’re yelling about us, you.”

She’d gotten hate mail before, but nothing like this. This was a full-blown hate rally.

“Then maybe I should give them something to really talk about.” She was experiencing anger and shock in competing proportions. Could some politician lean on Lamar Nolan to shut her down? Threaten some of Nolan Pharma’s cushy corporate tax breaks or something?

Charlize Russell was early thirties, young to have her own lab and discretionary budget, but in the gene-therapy world, she was a rapidly rising star. Today her chestnut hair was indifferently groomed and she was wearing a white lab coat that appeared lived in. It was. Hardly the look she would have chosen for a day she was about to be on television, but it also wouldn’t have occurred to her to care. She never really believed it when people told her she was beautiful and sexy in addition to being brilliant, so she never tried to cash in on her looks.

She’d grown up in New York’s Greenwich Village, where her late father had had a one-horse medical practice on West 12th Street. He’d begged her to go to medical school and someday take it over, but she had higher ambitions. She wanted to find out something about the human body that nobody else had ever known.

It had been a long personal struggle. She got through Columbia pre-med on scholarships; working summers at whatever job she could get, usually as a computer nerd. She specialized in creating encryption programs, a skill that made her dangerous around other people’s secrets.

There were a couple of men in her life in those undergraduate years, but she ended up living with Harley Ryan, mainly because they had more in common. They both went on to The University of Pennsylvania for doctorates, where they became close friends with a couple of other star students. Together, they dubbed themselves “The Gang of Four” and agreed to stick together and create an entrepreneurial biotech company after they graduated. Charlize, Harley, Rachel, and Tim: they called it Gene Solutions. They landed a National Science Foundation grant in no time, rented lab space near Penn, and focused their work on hereditary illnesses caused by flawed DNA.

However, they burned their seed capital in two years and they weren’t yet at a stage where they could go public. Banks weren’t interested in their problem, so three of them concluded the only way to continue was to become a subsidiary of some pharmaceutical company with deep pockets.

The fourth, Charlize, hated the idea. She’d led the field in pioneering gene-vectoring procedures in the laboratory, and she was so close to coming up with something commercial, she couldn’t bear the idea of selling. She didn’t take a breakthrough to the brink of success only to lose control.

Lamar Nolan offered to integrate their work into Nolan Pharmaceuticals’ Gene-Tech subsidiary and end their money troubles. Since Gene-Tech already owned half the human genome, it seemed a good fit. When the showdown came, she was out-voted. Charlize saw it as metaphor: like when one more Silicon Valley startup was swallowed up by Microsoft.

She memorialized the moment by breaking up with Harley and moving out.

She also kept her head and wangled a separate contract from Lamar Nolan to let her continue her own very-promising research—using neutered viruses to deliver corrected DNA to specific tissue. Her work was currently recognized throughout the profession as a major contribution to the field of gene therapy. Not coincidentally, by her contract she had the option to work exclusively on searching for a cure for muscular dystrophy and not be distracted by other calls on her time. Nolan later bragged it was the smartest thing he ever did.

“Dr. Russell,” came a voice on the hospital intercom, “you are wanted in administration immediately.”

“It’s Greer,” Deirdre moaned. “Oh my God, we’re gonna be fired.”

Daryl Greer was the man in charge of Downtown Manhattan Research Hospital. Knowing him, Charlie figured he was undoubtedly at this moment having a total meltdown over the demonstrators and the news coverage. He was an information control freak. Any media the hospital got, he wanted to manage.

Though she was funded by Gene-Tech and a couple of New York State grants, her official position was just adjunct staff. Now her independent work was bringing cable news zealots to the doorstep of Downtown Manhattan! Daryl Greer was going to go nuclear! He was not known for taking heat and standing up for his staff when called before the hospital board.

She silently mouthed, “shit.” The intercom page was meant to be a public humiliation, to let everybody in the entire building know he was pissed and she was the reason. She was being sent to the school principal’s office, publicly.

She tried to keep her cool as she brought over the wheelchair for Katy. “Tomorrow we’re going to walk all the way down to the cafeteria and both have an ice cream bar, the kind with peanuts. If not tomorrow, then next week for sure.”

“Promise?” Her smile was like a light bulb.

“Cross my heart.” Yes, it was worth it. She felt a surge of joy.

Go out there and shut them up! Do it for Katy.

She kissed the little girl on the forehead, then turned to Deirdre.

“Dee Dee, could you take Katy back up to her room and talk to her a little? This is all pretty scary.”

“Sure,” she said. “I love this kid.” Then she paused a moment before adding, “What are you going to do about Greer? He’s going nuts.”

Charlie was taking off her white lab coat and checking her hair in a blank monitor screen.

“You mean, are we all about to be out of work, Dee Dee?” she answered. “I don’t think so, because I’m about to give Dr. Daryl Greer a minor heart seizure. After that, we’ll see what he’s got the cojones to do. But somebody has to stand up to the wing-nuts.”

She strode out, knowing what she’d said was partly bluster—her “game face” when she was secretly terrified. The only way she could face situations like this was head-on, but if she sucked in her fears and stood up to the howling mob, there would definitely be fall-out afterwards. Daryl Greer had always been ambivalent about having her research project here, and this TV disaster was going to make for seriously chilly hallway encounters. However, he couldn’t kick her out on his own. The only person who could actually pull the plug was Lamar Nolan of Nolan Pharmaceuticals, who had an ironclad deal with Downtown Manhattan permitting her to have her lab here; but would he support her?

She took an elevator from the rear bank down to the first floor, then strode directly past an open door labeled “Administration” and headed for the front foyer of the building. She swept past Daryl Greer, expensive suit and comb-over, standing in the doorway and pretended not to see him. They’d had run-ins before over her demands for more computer access and Nolan had always backed her up. So far. But now, she didn’t know how bad it was out on the front steps.

“Dr. Russell, excuse me, I don’t want you going—EXCUSE ME!”

Ignore him, she challenged herself, focus on Katy. Don’t let those know-nothings out there take away her chance at a life.

Greer lunged after her, but then seemed to sense the futility of it and slowed down.

“You’d better know what you’re doing,” he yelled down the corridor. “You’re not a spokesman for anything, least of all this hospital, and I’m going to make damned sure they know that.”

“Good,” she called back, “then I can just say what I really think.”

As she neared the huge revolving door, she glimpsed the TV satellite truck parked right in front. Lamar Nolan could well be watching.

For a moment, she felt like she was losing her resolve. Was she about to end her career, and Katy’s hopes, along with thousands of others?

Bluff them.

As she forged out the revolving door, she was greeted by Klieg lights and a placard-waving throng of protestors. She guessed the number at maybe two hundred and they were demanding that she, Dr. Charlize Russell, be made to terminate her DNA work. “Stop tampering with people,” came the bullhorn. One placard read, “Only God Creates Genes.” Another read, “Make Peace Not FrankenPeople.”

She was trying to save life, not “tamper” with it, but try explaining that to somebody who didn’t want to hear it.

The bullhorn wielder, a red-haired man in his forties, black suit and severe visage, complete with dark, recessed eyes that might have belonged to the Grim Reaper himself, noticed her but did not appear to recognize her.

She strode straight over to him and angrily wrenched the bullhorn from his hands as though she owned it. Then she charged to the edge of the top step.

“How many of you have muscular dystrophy?” she demanded.

A shocked silence descended. The sounds of background traffic could again be heard.

“I thought so, because if you did you wouldn’t be out here. You’d be inside, in a wheelchair. So if you’d like to see people with the disease, you’re welcome to throw away your signs and come in and look.”

There were discordant murmurings in the crowd but she steeled her resolve and pressed on.

“You’d learn it’s caused by mutations in a human gene, which blocks the creation of a necessary protein in your muscles. However, with DNA repair, I can correct those mutated genes and insert them directly back into the affected muscles using neutered viruses. Once inside a cell, the fixed DNA can create the protein the cell’s old DNA couldn’t. It’s called ‘somatic’ gene therapy. Who knows how many other inherited genetic killers can be cured the same way?”

Some in the crowd were hesitantly lowering their signs, while others still waved them defiantly. They were a beady-eyed, earnest lot, who had been bussed in from somewhere. The sponsors of the campaign against gene therapy clearly were a collection of shadowy organizations whose main objective was to intimidate centrist politicians.

“This is the beginning of a new era in medicine,” she concluded. “And if you try to stop me helping people in the U.S., I’ll move my work to a country run by grown-ups.”

She tossed back the bullhorn and turned to leave. The solemn news anchors continued to intone about the “controversy” over ”altering” human genes. She’d given them a perfect-length sound bite. She figured they’d be running it all day as part of an attempt to try and keep the story alive. Use them the way they want to use you, she reasoned bitterly.

Daryl Greer and two of his staff, now in the doorway behind her, had been turning ever paler as she spoke. When she brushed by him on the way back inside, he seized her arm.

“Don’t you ever pull a stunt like that again.” He was breathing fire, his eyes glazed. “That is not the kind of publicity we need. I think it’s time I had a little talk with Lamar Nolan about moving your project elsewhere.”

He’s bluffing, she told herself. Though she knew he’d kick her out in a heartbeat if he could.

“I’ve got a signed five-year contract,” she announced over her shoulder. “Don’t think that’s likely to happen.”

As she headed back to her lab, she reflected on the pitfalls that could shut her down.

The many uses of altered DNA meant that one day somebody was going to go over the line. Some “master race” psycho was going to decide he could start creating “genetically modified” people, just like we now had genetically modified corn.

Maybe it would never happen. Then again, maybe something even more outlandish would occur.

When she stalked into her lab, Deirdre and Wendy were staring at Deirdre’s laptop, which was streaming video from the Internet.

“Dr. Russell, you were terrific,” Wendy blurted. She was a brilliant—and cheap—grad student, and she still held great reverence for the gravity that went with a Ph.D. She was holding a pink phone slip. “Oh, by the way, a man...”

“Wendy, it’s really okay to call me Charlie. I’m not into hierarchy that much.”

She stared at the screen for a moment, shaking her head. “You know, when Harley and Rachel and Tim and I finished school, we thought we were about to save the world. But now this. Sometimes I get so depressed. Why were we so lousy at business? I hate having to work for Gene-Tech and Nolan Pharma and now I hear rumors they’re in a cash-flow bind. So far I think it’s just a rumor, but . . . Christ.” She sighed. “Sometimes I just want to . . . I don’t know, join the Peace Corps, write poetry, something where I don’t have strangers congregate and yell about me.”

“But you’re about to be Gene-Tech’s star,” Deirdre exclaimed. “The work you’re doing . . . it’s almost ready for major clinical trials, and then –”

“When Lamar Nolan sees that demonstration out there, he could well get cold feet and yank our funding. He may be the Big Cheese of Big Pharma and a tough CEO, but he gets a lot of federal tax breaks and even he might...”

“Oh my God,” Wendy looked down at the pink phone slip, “is that who –?”

“Great,” Charlize mumbled, sensing her heart flip as she reached for the slip. “Here it comes.”

DAY ONE: New York

Chapter Two

August 6 Tuesday, 11:18 AM

Headquarters Nolan Pharmaceuticals,

Shore Hills, NJ

“She’s on line two,” Marcia announced on the intercom.

Lamar Nolan glanced at his phone screen and confirmed that Dr. Charlize Russell was returning his call.

He was in his late-sixties, tall, dark eyes, with a white semi-beard and a set of washboard abs from a daily workout in his personal gym. His office in the corner executive suite of Nolan Pharmaceuticals, in the New Jersey office park, was always cast in semi-darkness, the overhead lights off, the curtains drawn, a single floor lamp suspended over his deep desktop. The only transient thing ever allowed there was whatever single document he was processing at that instant in time. He never handled a piece of paper twice. His actual interface with the world was a 37-inch wide-screen monitor mounted just next to his desk, which gave him instant access to every database in the company. He also used it for teleconferencing.

These days Lamar Nolan had a big problem. He had a payroll of eighteen thousand employees on three continents, four major patents that were about to go generic, and he was fast running out of product in the pipeline. What’s more, Nolan Pharma was also being harassed by a series of frivolous Vioxx-type class-action lawsuits that were tied to a terrific, non-narcotic sleep aid that (claimants alleged) induced people to dangerously sleepwalk. Fatalities were involved and multi-millions were at risk. The attorneys’ fees alone were strangling him. He was having so much trouble sleeping he was almost tempted to use the damned stuff himself.

If his fortunes hadn’t already been headed south, he’d have thrown Harley Ryan out of his office that morning eight months ago when he strode in with his brilliant and highly unorthodox proposition, which had arisen out of his being approached by the owner of an NFL team in deep trouble.

But he didn’t, and the end result: he’d de facto bet the company on Harley Ryan’s impossible idea.

Then it worked. The top-secret gamble worked. The results Harley began reporting from Bonaire were incredible; and Lamar Nolan delightedly started thinking ahead, brainstorming with himself over commercial applications. Could a smartass prick like Harley Ryan single-handedly save Nolan Pharmaceuticals!

Apparently not.

He got the wakeup call, literally, early this morning. The owner of the New York Wolverines was only half sober and yelling he was going to sue over the damned “side effects” that had now engulfed the team. Discipline had suddenly gone inexplicably to hell, a key running back had been crippled for life probably, and he was placing the blame squarely on Harley Ryan and those damn Gene-Tech whiz kids he’d sent. You’d damn well better fix this now.

If this problem wasn’t handled immediately, Nolan realized with horror, it could soon engulf the entire company. He was beginning to wish he’d done what he should have those long eight months ago and fired young Dr. Ryan on the spot. There wasn’t supposed to be any downside to his new experimental procedure, no need for a Plan B just in case, but now . . . Damn Harley.

He flicked on the speakerphone.

“Dr. Russell, your contract has privileges, but I’m not sure they include making Nolan Pharmaceuticals the talk of cable news.”

Now of all moments, he thought grimly, he desperately needed to keep the company’s research inoculated from the media till this was fixed.

All along he’d figured that the experimental, edgy Bonaire project was something that straight-arrow Dr. Charlize Russell would never, ever have countenanced, which was why he’d kept her in the dark. That had been prescient, because she’d surely be yelling “I told you so” now if he’d briefed her earlier.

“Why are they trying to shut me down?” she demanded, fuming. “Just because I might save some lives? Can’t you do something? Go on the news shows and tell them to shut up?”

Lamar Nolan could recognize false bravado. She knew she’d stepped over the line. Nolan Pharma hired professional PR people to interface with the media. Case in point.

“Look, Dr. Russell—Charlize—you’ve got a few detractors in the wing-a-ding gallery, but, I think we can live with that. Which doesn’t mean you don’t owe me one for that little sound bite you just gave the world.” He paused but she said nothing. No apology would be forthcoming. He’d have loved to fire her and her mouth right then and there but unfortunately, he needed her now more than ever. “And, as it so happens, I could use your help with a project that’s got some . . . issues. You’ll have a chance to redeem yourself and give something back.”

Maybe, he reflected grimly, she already believed she was giving enough back. In exchange for providing the funding for her work, Nolan Pharmaceuticals received ninety percent of the patent rights of anything commercial she came up with.

“You know,” she said, reservation in her voice, “I’m pretty snowed under right now with my own work and contractually I don’t –”

“Hear me out.” Already she was giving him a pain in the pit of his stomach, early-onset heartburn. She had a way of doing that. “A problem’s come up at our facility down in Bonaire. I think you have the skill set needed to help address it.”

“What’s the ‘problem’?” She sounded guarded all of a sudden, then a note of pique. “For that matter, what’s the project?”

Did he dare tell her it was Harley Ryan’s brainstorm that needed a bailout? Not just yet. No way. Marcia had given him all the dish on their ugly break-up after the buyout. Too much bad blood there. First, get her to agree.

“It’s one of the most important gene-therapy clinical trials in the history of the company, very proprietary, so we don’t advertise it.” Was she really going to buy that? “But, like I said, an issue has come up that could use your input. Your flight schedule and ticket documents are being downloaded there as we speak.”

“Gene therapy?” she exploded. “Clinical trials? Why the hell wasn’t I briefed on this! Are you saying we have new pre-clinical and now clinical data in-house that I don’t even know about? Who’s –”

“Charlize, I’ve kept it compartmentalized for your own good. It involved some . . . untested procedures that I’d hoped you wouldn’t need to be associated with.” He was still trying to feed her a line she would bite. “But since you appear to be interested, I guarantee you you’re going to be heavily involved from this moment on. In fact, I’m shooting over an encrypted file with the project history. You’ve got the proprietary key. You’ll want to get up to speed on the protocols. Read it and erase it. No copies. You’ll have to wait to see the actual data and results when you get to Bonaire. That data is sequestered and doesn’t leave the lab for ANY reason. But let me just say it’s astonishing.”

“If this project you never briefed me on is so astonishing,” now there was boiling anger in her voice, “then why do you suddenly need –?”

“I need you because we could use some high-skill tweaking,” he declared with finality. The velvet-glove phase of the conversation was over. “And that means you. Charlize, I’m telling you to go. Your ticket is already processed.”

He clicked off before she could get another word in, relieved that it hadn’t gone worse. When she actually saw the project file, she’d immediately realize it was Harley’s baby, and then she could have the real explosion, blow out somebody else’s eardrums. Of course, what she still wouldn’t know was the one specific detail that made it so incredibly original and daring—and dangerous.

Maybe she wouldn’t ever have to know.

That’s when a new window popped open on his master screen. It was the secure satellite communications room at the Bonaire facility. Anxiously seated there were Drs. Harley Ryan, Rachel Wu, and Timothy Collins.

*****

Moments earlier Harley Ryan had been petulantly staring at the blank wall-sized screen that teleconferenced them to Lamar Nolan’s office in New Jersey, waiting for the satellite hookup to be in place. He had an unwelcome premonition that this command phone call was going to be about sending Charlize down. He suspected that Coach Hunter had been true to his word this morning and bitched to the Wolverines’ owner and, do the math, the whole thing ended up on Lamar Nolan’s desk an hour later. Damn!

Was Nolan now about to get cold feet? This could not be allowed to happen.

Harley reasoned he’d proven conclusively that you could create a miracle football club out of has-beens. But nobody was going to believe that till the world saw them play. His longer-term goal was to manage the “side effects” long enough to take the Super bowl. That would be a billion dollars worth of free publicity.

Then what?

He was keeping all his procedures and data on encrypted files, showing Lamar Nolan only the results. When the time came, when he’d nailed this gamble, he was going to set up a new company beyond the legal reach of Nolan Pharmaceuticals, and the FDA. Lamar Nolan couldn’t very well sue, since he’d have to expose what had really been done, something the FDA and NIH must never, ever know.

Harley Ryan had already made some preliminary financing arrangements for his start-up with a couple of unorthodox financiers in New Jersey. Two months ago they’d provided him $200K cash in earnest money—at his insistence—and the money was already invested, largely in the form of a new Aston Martin. He reasoned that the first thing a successful entrepreneur had to do was look the part.

Now all of a sudden he had “side effects” threatening his success and a big debt to some individuals who had creative ways of showing their disappointment if they got the impression they’d been hustled. He was trying not to let himself feel terrified. He had no choice but to make this procedure work. The one thing he could not afford was to have Charlize come down here and then get Lamar to pull the plug.

He wondered if Rachel had the resolve to stand up to Lamar Nolan. She was in almost as deep as he was, so he figured she’d have to. In spite of the fact she’d initially experimented with the procedure too, but then got cold feet, saying she’d started feeling strange.

The forty-inch flat panel flickered and then Lamar Nolan appeared, seated at his desk in the New Jersey headquarters. They all sat up straight.

“I just heard we’ve got a problem. The question is, why am I learning about this from our client?”

So I was right, Harley thought bitterly. Cap Hunter, the bastard, is blaming me for that stupid blow-up during the storm—but he let it happen.

“I can answer that,” Harley said smoothly. “Best we can tell, it was just an unfortunate accident. We’re trying to get a better handle on what actually occurred. We wanted to have the full story before we reported –”

“Accident? That’s not what I hear from Buck Press, who’s in a position to know since it’s his team.” Nolan’s voice was acid. “His head coach, that guy named Hunter, is going berserk, saying all your test subjects have become more and more mentally unstable, and now they’re starting to be dangerous. He’s just lost his best running back and he’s blaming me. Now, I want to know what the hell went wrong.”

“Let me remind you,” Harley said, straightening up more, “that we were given carte blanche to just make it work and worry about the small stuff later. Well, it’s working. You see the weekly summaries. The only issue now is just a minor glitch or two. Some personality issues.”

Nolan’s countenance darkened. “The pre-season opener is coming up. We’ve got less than two weeks. You’ve got less than two weeks. So you’d better deal with your ‘personality issues’ pretty damn soon.”

“I’m well aware of –”

“Incidentally,” he went on, “I’ve decided that this situation calls for all hands on deck. Tomorrow, I’m sending down Dr. Russell, who’s had considerable luck lately, to take a fresh look.”

Damn! For once Harley hated to be right.

“You know,” he declared, “from the very beginning we agreed to keep her out of this. For a reason.”

“That seemed a good idea at the time. Now I’m not so sure.”

“That’s dangerous,” Harley fumed. “It’s a breach of security.”

“Well, she’s the only one I’ve got who can walk right in, hands on, at this stage. The consequences of screwing this up are incalculable for the company.”

“We don’t need her. I’m going to –”

“What you’re going to do, Dr. Ryan, is meet her plane tomorrow and put her to work. Immediately. I’ll have Marcia e-mail the flight info. . . . Oh, and make damned sure there’s no media when she gets off the plane. She’s a loose cannon around a microphone and cameras. She was on cable news this morning making me famous.”

The screen went dark.

“Harley, I don’t want that bitch here,” Rachel declared, livid, eyes bulging.

He was quick enough to perceive that her concern was not all about the research. But that wasn’t where the real problem lay. Charlie was going to freak when she found out the actual story—which she certainly would eventually. She might try to take matters into her own hands. It was scary.

“You heard The Man,” was all he could manage. It was infuriating. “We just have to quarantine her. The less anybody in this room sees of her, the better.”

Then and there he silently vowed to keep her at arms length from the facts. Even while what was left of his rational mind was screaming she might actually be the one person alive who could still save him.

DAY ONE:

Bonaire, Netherlands Antilles

Chapter Three

August 6 Tuesday, 8:22 PM

Kaya Gobernador Nicolaas Debroit

Joost Vlet was slightly drunk, whistling a syncopated Reggae tune, and trying to cheer himself up as he steered his Honda north on the coastal road, heading home after a long and upsetting day. The spectacular vista, a steep precipice leading down to the sea, as well as the knowledge that instant death was about eight feet away, always gave his pulse a jolt. He was a burly black man with a high forehead and enquiring eyes. He’d received a Masters degree in criminal law from Florida State and he’d written his thesis in perfect English, but here he loved the music of the local patois. On the door of the car was written the logo “Chief of Police, Bonaire, N. A.”

The island is often thought of as Caribbean though it actually hovers just off the northern coast of Venezuela, some 150 miles northwest of Caracas. It’s a world of its own, a quasi-European place in the sun best known as a SCUBA treasure. Next best known are the vast sea-salt evaporation ponds and accompanying flocks of pink flamingoes in the south. He loved the island and being the man in charge always made him appreciate it even more. There had been a hell of a rainstorm this morning, but it cleared and the day turned out beautiful. It was now just your basic day in the Garden of Eden. The coastal landscape was smothered in purple-flowered crepe myrtle and the fern-leafed divi-livi, a vigorous native that was the national tree of sister-island Curacao. Mornings, the air was thick with the glossy colored feathers and musical twitters of darting swallows, martins, grassquits.

Tonight, though, his feelings were a jumble. First off, his wife Jolie had called just after four PM with news that a third child was in their future. Hey, he loved Andre and Maria, ages eight and five, but a duet struck him as a reasonable number. When you get started having kids, you usually don’t give adequate thought to the consequences. But after two, you know better.

Whistling helped him think and kept him alert. Jolie was going to be pissed he hadn’t come straight home, but he’d felt a spiritual need to stop by Georgio’s, a dive just at the north edge of town, for a couple of Amstels. Two led to four and then he lost count.

He gradually let Jolie’s news slip into the haze of resignation. Returning to haunt were some recent stories about strange occurrences in the northern section of the island, near the town of Rincon. Bonaire was famous for its many wild, feral donkeys, herds of which had roamed the island for three hundred years, flaunting their sense of entitlement. They vandalized garbage cans (even in town, people put on locks) and caused many auto accidents; but they enjoyed a special place in the people’s heart and lore. Though they were a damned nuisance, they so exuded a cocky presumptive ownership of their niche in the island’s social fabric that residents had long since come to accept, even protect, them.

But had it finally ended?

Recently there’d been half a dozen rumored sightings of mutilated donkeys in the north of the island. It was giving those who’d heard the stories a skittish sense that something was loose that hadn’t been there before.

But then again tall tales had a way of proliferating and mutating after a certain quantity of beer. . . .

Still, he needed to find out the real story.

He tried letting his mind drift with the Amstel and count his blessings. The drive up the coast was loveliest when there was a full moon, with light shimmering off the silvery sea, but tonight the moon was playing hide-and-seek with some clouds, which meant that you had to keep a special eye out for the damned donkeys, who thought they owned the road. Half his calls were about some blotto drunk who was speeding and slammed into one of them.

Just then, five grown donkeys dashed across the road in front of him. He slammed the brakes, swerved, and lightly grazed a slow, aging male. Then they vanished into the dark. Another close call. Times like this, he wanted to shoot every damned one of them. He eased back on the accelerator and tried to regain the tune he was whistling. Oddly, he couldn’t remember donkeys ever actually running quite like that. They usually just ambled, knowing they owned every scrap of unfenced land on the island, including the roads.

Then he turned a bend and saw a Nissan pickup just ahead. It was well within the speed limit but it had a broken taillight. Who cared, really. Auto parts of any kind were extremely hard to come by here.

But he was the Chief, after all. You start overlooking the little stuff and in no time you’ve got no respect and a crime wave. And also, it was a chance to do a favor for his wife’s older brother.

He reached out and slapped on his flashing red light. After the pickup skidded to a stop, he beckoned the nervous driver around to show him the taillight. He stood back, remembering he probably smelled of good Dutch beer.

“Jus’ givin’ you a verbal warnin’, mon” he declared in the local sing-song. “Nothin’ wrote down. See you can’t fix that by tomorrow.”

“Don’ know where I find the part, mon.”

The guy was acting nervous and Vlet fleetingly thought about asking for his license. But that wasn’t the best lead-in for the next part of his plan.

“Let me get you a card out of the car. My wife’s brother, he keep a lot of parts. Or he make you somethin’.” He retrieved a business card from a packet clipped to the visor and wrote his initials on the back. He got 25% on referrals. “Tell him I send you.”

Still the man was acting a little too nervous. Something didn’t feel right.

That’s when he noticed that a half-rotted tarp in the back of the pickup was covering something. He walked over and pulled it back and there in the dark was what looked like the bloody remains of a donkey.

Damn. Was this guy . . . ? Hard to imagine, but then what was he doing with . . .?

“You hit this on the highway? Law say you got to report. I ought arrest you law-breaking black ass. Right here on the spot.”

“I don’ kill him, mon.” He seemed too frightened to elaborate. “Let me get a flashlight, so you take a better look. This one not been run over. He been ripped apart. Jesus, mon.”

“What you talkin’ about?”

Vlet took the light and checked it out. Shit, he was right.

“He be thrown into my back yard, not an hour ago. I hear a commotion out back and when I turn on the light, this t’ing come flying over the fence. I just wan’ take it to the dump. Don’ wan’ my kids to see.”

Vlet studied the carcass more carefully and felt a chill. Now that he was finally seeing one, it was clear that this was not an attack by a dog. A pack of wolves maybe, but he’d never known of a wolf on Bonaire.

Some killer like he’d never seen on the island had done this.

That was when his Amstel haze started to clear and he admitted to himself that he hadn’t really wanted to believe the rumors lately about mangled donkeys. He’d hoped it was just stories to get the kids home by dark. What would pass on Bonaire as an urban legend. The Boogey Man. But now, seeing this ripped-up carcass . . .

“I goin’ take this damned t’ing with me, mon.”

The man nervously helped him to stuff the bloody remains into his trunk. Vlet stared at it one last time in dismay before slamming the lid.

“You tell anybody ’bout this t’ing and I hear, I goin’ arrest you ass for sure. You seen nothin’ and you never heard ’bout this. Loose talk ‘bout a t’ing like this get to building and then it jus’ get bigger and wilder and pretty soon you scarin’ off the tourists.”

Joost Vlet watched the broken taillight disappear into the night and pondered the mangled carcass in his trunk. He was having a strange sensation, one he had never had in all his years on Bonaire, fear of something unknown in the dark.

Some thing or things was out there, something that could rip apart a fully-grown donkey, and then throw it over a fence.

It was scary enough that something could do that, but even scarier to wonder why. It was as if it had killed and dismembered a donkey for the fun of it.

When he got into his car, he did something that he almost never did when alone: he rolled up the windows and locked the doors. The next thing he wanted to do was call the Honorable Jon Hoist, the provincial governor. He needed permission to bring in an animal behaviorist he knew from the states to track this thing to ground.

He hated making the call on his cell and then realized he’d left it back at the bar anyway. That problem solved. He’d pick it up tomorrow. Right now, he wanted to get home as fast as he dared on the deserted coastal road.

The consultant he had in mind was a guy named Alex Archer, whom he’d known in Guatemala, when the two had been with Human Rights Watch documenting mass graves. Archer had gone on to become a specialist in animal behavior. He’d declared that having seen that humans can act like animals, he’d decided he might as well operate amongst the real thing.

Then Joost Vlet’s mind went back momentarily to Jolie and the new baby. Maybe, he thought, if Alex could help him track this thing down in short order, before the rumors got out of hand, there might be a bonus or even a raise in it.

When he pulled in and stopped at the front of his modest frame house, Jolie had the porch light on before he could even switch off the Honda’s beams. The freshly painted white porch gleamed.

Jolie was not gleaming. Her elegant half-Dutch, half Ivory Coast face was contorted with anger.

“Joost, you been out drinking. Today of all –”

“Don’t start on that, woman. You just get on back in the house, lock the doors, and bring Champ in with you. Rotweiler or not, I want him with us. And the first thing I got to do is try to get hold of a guy.”

*****

The irony was, his old friend was not in Idaho or Maine or New York or wherever he might normally be. By the inscrutable hand of chance he was only a few miles away, on the sister island of Curaçao.

DAY ONE:

Curaçao, N.A.

Chapter Four

August 6 Tuesday, 7:18 PM

Docked in Spanish Water marina, Curaçao

Alex Archer was in the cockpit of a 38-foot Hunter sailboat tied up to the private dock of a waterside island mansion (not his) in Curaçao. He was chomping down on a newly defrosted pizza con mushrooms with his nine-year-old daughter Amy and her best friend in the world, Carol. The two girls were set to fly back home to New York early the next morning (and were already complaining about the ungodly hour of the flight), while he was freshly provisioned to set sail and deliver the Hunter to Liberty Landing Marina in Jersey City, NJ.

The Hunter was a spacious beauty, with a wide hull designed especially for cruising. She also was fully loaded: autopilot, sonar to monitor depth, radar for alerts of close encounters with shipping, and the galley had a huge battery-run freezer charged by a wind-powered generator. The weather faxes he’d checked that afternoon showed no glimmer of any tropical depressions anywhere to the north. Perfect time to get moving.

In preparation for the sail back, he’d spent several days reviewing NIMA’S Atlas of Pilot Charts, North Atlantic Ocean. For the first leg, he’d do a straight shot north-northeast up to the Virgin Islands, where he could take care of any problems that surfaced. From there, he’d head northeast and surround himself with as much blue water as possible. There were four Bahamian banks in a row to stay well north of: Navidad, Silver, Mouchoir and Calicos; but once past Grand Bahama, he’d have the trade winds with him on a broad reach. Then he’d hit the Gulf Stream, which would carry him up the U.S. coast like a magic carpet.

Alex Archer was certainly north of thirty, He’d been around the track, and it would not be unkind to say he looked it. He was shade under six feet and tanned to the point of flirting with skin cancer since he had never, since college, spent any more time indoors than was absolutely necessary. He’d done Pre-Med as an undergraduate at Columbia, but by the time he finished, he realized his heart wasn’t in it. The indoor aspect was a deal breaker.

So he went looking for exterior employment and ended up with Human Rights Watch, which sent him to Guatemala to try to reconstruct how two hundred thousand peasants got “disappeared” by death squads on suspicion of being leftist. His medical training was considered a cousin of forensic pathology.

However, the thing about unearthing all those atrocities was, he got to wondering about what in our genes would let us obediently gun down whole families and dump them in an unmarked pit. Were such things learned or were they innate?

That question became an obsession. Core instincts. That’s what interested him. He finally realized it. But he didn’t want to start with human behavior; he wanted to go down the evolutionary tree and begin with our animal forbearers. Since we share a lot of DNA, he was hoping maybe he could filter out the ideology and learn something real.

In the middle of all that, he got married and Amy came along and while it’s true that holding his own infant in his arms was a heart-stopping rush of joy, he was away so much he barely got to know her before Joanna got fed up and fired him. Deservedly so, he conceded.

He published and soon enough was being called on to consult about wildlife behavior. Though Amy lived mainly with Joanna, he tried to spend as much time with her as she would tolerate. He was still rooting for the proposition that most bad things about us have to be learned, and he was hoping he could intervene in that.

The reason he was on Curaçao with Amy that moonlit evening was a confluence of events. Joanna had taken off with her latest beau, some high-end Corcoran broker, for a trip to view migrating whales in Alaska, and since she didn’t want Amy tagging along on her romantic cruise, Alex lucked out for two weeks.

The second event was a deeply felt mid-life . . . not crisis exactly, more like time out. He decided he’d seen one too many fatal human-animal interactions.

The day he vowed to decree a mental-health month, he drove over to Liberty Landing Marina at Jersey City to try his luck at hustling up a boat delivery job. He headed for the scruffy dockside bar to see if the owner had heard anybody talking about needing such. No sooner had he asked than a sunburned, unshaven, needs-a-barber patron on the other side of the bar ambled around and sat down.

“Guy I know bought a used 38-foot Hunter down in Curaçao Curaçao. Rich Dutch dude named Kiefer. Needs somebody to get it up here by the end of August for some dry-dock work. I’ve got his cell. Think you could handle a rig that size?”

This was perfect!

“Done it plenty of times.” Well, did twice count as plenty?

They got him on the phone. The proposition, fly to Curaçao on Archer’s dime, spend as much time as he wanted in Kiefer’s empty vacation house there (youthful guests no problem if supervised), then sail it back, before September. Provisions, his problem. As a bonus, he got a couple of weekend free sails next summer.

The trip had gone perfectly. Both girls had gulped down the island and interrogated him at length about the bewildering thought processes of boys their age—as though he had a clue.

Actually another young girl was the trigger for his timeout. Back in late July he was in Trenton, New Jersey, at the police mortuary, having received a call from Harold Winter, a guy he barely knew, who was investigating a homicide.

Winter was short, with a whiteness of flesh that more than one person had suggested resembled the corpses he dealt with. He was lifting a dull gray sheet as the gurney was rolled out of the cooler. Archer gasped in spite of himself. The sight was immediate and horrifying. Mary Stokes had just turned five, strawberry hair, and her left side and her neck had been lethally mauled, the carotid artery ripped open. It made him shudder.

“The tooth marks and attack style are definitely black bear,” he said when he managed to recover his composure. “But you had a visual on him, right?”

“Right, the parents,” he said. “Okay, bear confirmed. I’m going to release the body. And by the way, they claimed the bastard was acting crazy, pawing at the air as though being attacked by bees or something. Her father, Jim Stokes, had a .22 pistol and thinks he probably got a slug or two into him.”

“You just piss him off with that caliber. Lucky he didn’t come back and kill the rest of the family. By the way, did you test the saliva in the wounds for rabies? There’s been one other report from northern New Jersey in the last six weeks, up around—”

“How did you know that?” Winter looked slightly startled. “We thought we’d kept it out of the papers.”

“It’s my business to hear things.”

He frowned. “Well, whatever’s wrong with this killer, right now we just need you to track him down and take him out. They say you can think like a big carnivore. That’s why we sent for you. So how are you planning to eradicate this son-of-a-bitch?”

That’s when Archer felt a surge of pique and knew right away he seriously needed to get out of town, and yeah, take Amy. Having to look at a girl who was half Amy’s age who’d just been mauled was too much. He wanted some quality time with his daughter.

“Look, I want to try to take him alive. Unprovoked attacks on humans by these bears are rare, and I need to try and figure out what caused it.”

“Hey, you may be one of the nation’s top animal hotshots,” Winter snarled back, “but this isn’t the ASPCA.”

“If you don’t want to try to learn from this, then you don’t need me.” He was definitely losing his cool. “Just get some sharpshooters from the state police and do a sweep through those suburbs. Slaughter every bear you scare up and you’ll probably get him. But that’s not how I work.”

He stopped himself. Why was killing always the answer? If you’re going to manage a big carnivore, you have to understand them and exploit their traits.

Winter stared at him. “Are you saying you won’t help us?”

“I thought I made it clear before I came down here that I only take assignments where I call the shots. At the end of every job I want to know something I didn’t know before.” He reached to shake Winter’s hand before he said something he’d regret. “Tell Chief Ripley not to expect a bill, even for expenses. Let’s just call it an honest misunderstanding.”

“Well, I –”

“And good luck,” he called over his shoulder. “Just check for rabies after you get him. And pray that’s what it is.”

When he got to his rental car, he was thoroughly depressed. He had to get away, and here he was, ready for the sail.

He’d brought along some novels, but mainly he planned to fish off the stern for Mahi-Mahi and soak up the view of turquoise water by day and flawlessly starry skies by night.

He had one long-time friend in this part of the world, Joost Vlet, who’d been his right hand when he was with Human Rights Watch in Guatemala. He hadn’t told him he was coming down, and now he was about to leave without even saying hello. Guilt welled up. There’s the honored tradition of the “Hey, I’m passing through and just wanted to say hi” call, when neither of you really has anything new to impart.

The first time he reached Joost’s home phone, it was busy. He figured Jolie was just chatting up some of her friends so he waited ten minutes and tried again. Success, but Joost sounded very strange.

“Hey, mon, where you be?” He sounded flustered. Very unusual. “I actually try callin’ your home tonight and machine say you gone for three weeks.”

No hello, how ya doin’?

“Well, I’m actually not that far away.” He was delighted to hear Joost’s voice now that he had him on the phone. “Just over at Curaçao in a marina.”

He went on to explain the circumstances, including the fact that he was setting sail in the morning.

“You can’t do that, mon.” Joost’s voice was upset and imploring. “We got to get together. You got transportation. Get you butt over here now.”

“Wish I could, Joost. I’d like nothing better. But I’ve got to catch this perfect window in the weather. I dick around a few days and, who knows.”

“Mon, we got somet’ing going on here you gotta check out. I was jus’ goin’ to talk with you ‘bout it on the phone, ’cause I probably can’t afford to hire you, but since you in the neighborhood, then you can jus’ see for yourself. I need you do this for me, mon. This is bad t’ing.”

“What the heck is this all about?”

“No, mon, not on the phone, not since you here. Jus’ come soon, mon.”

To hear Joost so upset was very troubling. It felt . . . ominous.

“Well, the weather is pretty calm. Maybe a couple of days wouldn’t be the end of the world.” He knew he should do it and felt better already for agreeing. Besides, it would be great to see Joost. “I’ve got an airport run to take care of in the morning but . . .” He paused, thinking. “I could probably get over there tomorrow afternoon late.”

“That’d be great, mon. I’ll tell Joe at the downtown marina to expect you, reserve you a mooring.”

They signed off. If it seemed like he was being led along by a string of coincidences, the biggest one yet lay just ahead.

DAY TWO: Bonaire

Chapter Five

August 7 Wednesday, 9:15 AM

New York / Kralendijk

Early the next day, Dr. Charlize Russell was walking down the aisle of a KLM Airbus “JFK to Bonaire” flight checking her ticket, headed for Seat 32A. Once there she took out her customized 8-gigahertz industrial-strength Mac laptop, stowed her carry-on, settled in, and clicked it on to continue reading. My God, what had Harley done! She was still in shock.

She’d loaded the Bonaire project file Lamar Nolan had sent late last night and begun reading it with growing alarm. As Harley described his study, the objective was to explore the effect that altering certain DNA strands could have on the production of hormones and proteins that governed athletic performance, looking for ways to enhance it that would circumvent charges of doping. In essence it was classic gene therapy turned on its head: vectoring new DNA into test subjects who were already perfectly normal to begin with, not to make them normal but to make them unnatural. The ethical issues boggled her mind.

The even more shocking part was, he was now engaging in experimental clinical trials on human subjects without any pre-clinical work, not even mice. The FDA would surely put Gene-Tech, and probably her along with it, out of business in a heartbeat if this came out.

It got even worse, if that were possible. He was experimenting on some of the highest profile subjects in America. A New York pro football team, for God’s sake. He must have lost his mind! One leak and it’s world headlines.

Surely, that was why he was doing it secretly on Bonaire. The scumbag.

Did Lamar Nolan realize exactly what Harley was up to? How could he even think of allowing it? Was Nolan Pharmaceuticals in such bad shape financially to justify this kind of high-stakes flirting with corporate suicide!

Still, as she went through the stated protocols for the study, she found herself in grudging awe of Harley’s daring. He was definitely swinging for the fences. But there was good daring and there was reckless daring. So what the hell had happened? What went so wrong that Lamar was sending her to try and fix it? Damn them both. She didn’t have time to be the company’s 911.

But then again, she mused, looked at another way this was an opportunity to store up a few markers with Lamar Nolan, against a rainy day when she needed some particularly expensive piece of lab equipment. Try and think positive, she sighed.

She read a bit more, beginning to sense he was hiding the substance in a bunch of generalities, and then let her mind drift to the soothing sounds of a Mozart quintet on her iPod.

From the study preamble, she’d noticed that Harley was bringing Rachel and Tim along to Bonaire with him. That, she decided, was why she hadn’t heard from them in several months, other than cryptic e-mails that they were deep in a proprietary project and had gone black. Harley, on the other hand, had truly disappeared into the system, and she hadn’t heard a word about or from him. It was like he’d disappeared from the earth, and there were moments when she wondered about him . . . and actually missed him. God she hated that.

Finally, she stilled her mind and let herself drift off. Sometimes, taking a break, a little inner solitude, felt right.

When the plane set down, local time was almost 2:00 PM. She went through the minimal Bonaire customs formalities and then picked her well-worn bag off the luggage carousel.

She was walking toward the door, anticipating the burst of tropical air, when a hand roughly wrenched the suitcase out of her grasp.

“I’ll carry that. Earth to Charlize, you should really consider new luggage. It comes with wheels now, or hadn’t you heard.”

“Harley,” she gasped in shock, “what . . .”

A small tingle ran through her that she was sure she didn’t want to feel. She was remembering all over again why she’d been drawn to Harley Ryan in the first place. His presence was like a force of nature. That much energy and self-assurance in one package was a turn-on. As was the fact that she could, back then, effect control over it.

“Come on,” he was stalking away from the regular exit. “I’m whisking you out the back, in case somebody here recognizes you. You’re a little too famous this week to be seen in public down here. You had to go and get your face all over the damn cable channels. You’re the talk of the lab. We hear they’re running that little scene of yours on the steps of Downtown Manhattan about every hour. Not the way Lamar Nolan likes for Gene-Tech to make the news.”

“Harley,” she couldn’t stop herself from blurting, “I’ve just seen your study protocols for down here. What you’re doing is criminal. Full scale clinical trials. You could ruin us all.”

“Lighten up, Charlie. How I run this project is none of your business. I didn’t ask you to come. We’ve all got Lamar to thank. And you’d better not screw me up while you’re here.”

You bully, she thought bitterly, you’re already trying to intimidate me. Well, that was so last-time-around. I’ve got my own lab now; I outgrew being a masochist.

“So tell me what exactly you’re doing to this football team that’s causing a problem,” she said, sizing him up. He seemed strangely altered and extremely hyper. She didn’t like the nervous vibe he was giving off. “Oh, and by the way, what is the problem exactly?”

“I’m creating miracles,” he boasted with an attempt at a seductive swagger. “We’ll see who wins the Nobel Prize first, you or me. Just prepare to be amazed by my results.”

Despite all the attempts at bravado, something about his voice gave her the feeling he was a man fearful his life’s work could be about to explode in his face. Knowing Harley, that only meant he was going to lash out at anybody around him. Beware.

“Well, pal, it’s good to see you too.” She was still working on her composure. “But I’m not going to begin my visit here by sneaking around.”

“Forget it. The Man says you are not to be seen at the airport. He doesn’t want the project here to suddenly get famous because you showed up. And what Lamar Nolan wants, L. N. gets.”

“Harley, I don’t frigging think so.” Seething, she reached to wrench back her bag. “You’re through trying to run my life. You’re just doing this to bug me. Given the years I lived with you, I can read you like a book.”

The problem was, that cut both ways. She knew he had her number pretty well too. He knew just the things that set her off—plus the things that turned her on.

“Let me simplify matters. See those two local guys over there who look like alums of the World Wrestling Federation. They’re from Security at the lab and they’re here to clarify any misgivings you might have about cooperating. Don’t worry, it’s just till we slip you out of the airport.”

She looked them over and felt a chill enter the tropical air. The next thing she knew, they were escorting her through an exit labeled “Flight Crews Only,” with Harley in tow.

As the black limo hit the highway, the huge clock next to the “Welcome to Bonaire” sign declared the local time to be 2:29 PM.

For years Nolan Pharmaceuticals’ flagship genetics laboratory had been off-shored near a windswept cove in the desolate, isolated northern peak of the island. It was next door to a massive array of retransmission antennas for Radio Netherlands, which meant a highly reliable electric power infrastructure was at hand. It also didn’t hurt that Gene-Tech was on a former Dutch possession that was trying to attract high-tech business with a host of tax giveaways. Everybody remembered what greasing drug manufacturers did for Puerto Rico. The unspoken clincher was that the Dutch island provided an end run around the FDA when Lamar Nolan wanted to explore non-U.S. markets with a new pharmaceutical and recoup some development costs while waiting around for Washington approval procedures to dawdle along.

While the security duo discreetly sat in front, Harley announced they would go directly up-island to the Gene-Tech lab. At the end of the day, she could take a company car and drive back down to the town and her hotel. Then without warning he segued into rant about how the bean counters at Gene-Tech’s New Jersey headquarters didn’t appreciate him, were always nickel-and-diming him. He was stressed, aggressive, and seriously paranoid. What was that all about?

Finally, she decided she’d heard enough and cut him off.

“Maybe you’d like to focus a little and start telling me what’s so damned important here that I have to drop everything and...”

“Let’s just say the DNA work Rachel and Tim and I have been doing has had some minor unexpected consequences,” he declared evasively, including a measure of petulance at the question. “No big deal. We just need to figure out a way to . . . contain certain side effects.”

“Well, sweetie, it’s easier to create a screw-up than to reverse a screw-up.” She stared at him, growing increasingly annoyed. “Do you actually know what caused whatever has happened? I mean, which specific DNA strands?”

“There’s nothing detectable in the blood,” he blurted out.

“Well of course not, but what’s that got to do with anything?”

He squirmed, as though he’d just slipped and given away something he shouldn’t have. Then he quickly recovered and changed course. “Let me just say this. I gather that Nolan thinks that when I replicated your viral vectoring procedures, I might have gotten something wrong. No way that happened, of course, but try telling him. Frankly, I can handle this, but he swears two heads, etc.”

“You used my work?” she exploded. “Who gave you permission?”

“Hey, the company owns us, both of us, lock, stock, and data, remember? I can use anything of yours I please.”

“Then let’s get some facts on the table.” She was steaming. “Somehow you have managed to seriously rattle Lamar Nolan. I don’t know what the hell you did, but here I am, supposed to save your ass from some screw-up that nobody will elaborate. We don’t have to be nice to each other, but it might help if we tried to cooperate for a day or two.”

“Thanks for the warm and fuzzy thoughts,” he snorted. “You might be interested to know I did everything I could to talk Nolan out of sending you down here. Frankly, you’re the last person I ever wanted to see again.” He paused, new pain in his eyes, and reached over and clumsily took her hand. The abrupt turnabout startled her.

“Look, Charlie, the whole relationship screw-up was my fault, I know that now. We made a great team, but I just wasn’t good at teamwork. And I also wasn’t good at admitting when someone else might be right. A guy’s got to believe in himself 200% in this business, and you were always telling me how something could be done better. Who needed that! So the only thing I could do was to sabotage . . . us. That’s why I was doubly glad when Lamar asked me to leave the lab in New Jersey and come down here to Bonaire. It was a good excuse to get away and leave all the guilt behind.”

“Where was that candor back when it would have made a difference?” she said, feeling pain. Then, with mixed emotions, she pulled her hand away. “In keeping with the honesty theme, let me just say I’ve adjusted to life without you. If you ever checked the company database, you’d see what I’m doing.”

“I hear Nolan is very happy with your work,” he mumbled. “Frankly I’ve kinda had my hands full for some time now.”

“Right.” She knew he was too self-centered to care. It still hurt. Then she glanced out the window and realized they were driving along the edge of a wind-swept cliff, with pounding surf below them. The sky was a brilliant azure and the ocean vista breathtaking. A pity she wasn’t here with someone she still loved.

It was upsetting to see him now for another reason. He was so changed—his tics and mannerisms and temper. Not to mention his too busy hands, his habit of fixing her with his imploring gaze one moment and then seeming to disappear into himself the next. Did it mean that this scene wasn’t about work, that he was trying to draw out a chemical response from her, but—she took a deep breath—was there any chemistry left? Could she ever even consider . . . ?

The car swerved to miss a cluster of feral donkeys that was grazing along the roadside. They were everywhere, cute little creatures who seemed very edgy about their surroundings, constantly looking around and sniffing the air.

“They’ve been here for hundreds of years,” Harley explained, seeing her interest. “Annoying little buggers.”

“Do they have any natural enemies?” she asked. “Wolves or anything?”

“Not that I know of.”

“Then why do they seem so nervous?”

“Beats me,” Harley said. Then, “Hey, wait till you see the lab here. It ain’t ‘Top Secret’ for nothing. I’m actually running our weekly tests on some of the guys today. It’ll blow your mind.”

It did.

*****

As chance would have it, at that very moment Alex Archer was securing the 38-foot Hunter, named Occam’s Razor, to a large white mooring ball in Bonaire’s downtown marina. Amy and Carol were already safely back in New York via American Airlines, and he’d cleared Curaçao departure formalities and motor-sailed over on a broad reach, making almost thirty knots. The Hunter was performing great. He couldn’t wait to sort out whatever was bugging Joost and head north.

Still, it felt good to be back, if only for a day or two. He loved the island.

He’d actually been on his satellite phone to Joost when he first caught sight of Bonaire, and the sense of urgency remained in his voice. But he still refused to elaborate.

The harbormaster, Joe, picked him up in an inflatable dingy and transported him to dockside. Then he grabbed a cab over to the hotel, which was at the south edge of town. He had high hopes for a quick visit, but as a precaution, he negotiated for an enormous shower and guaranteed hot water—one small comfort of home he’d come to treasure after time in Central America.

Since it was early, he then headed for a car rental place up the street and picked out a small gray Toyota. Then he drove over and parked in front of the one-story brick building with a bronze plaque reading Police / Bonaire, N.A. and went in. Reception waved him toward Joost’s office. The halls were cinderblock and gray, unchanged from his last visit three years earlier. His old friend was on the phone and looked haggard and distraught.

“If he no PADI certified, he no suppose’ be diving. But when he get out of the hospital, he may sue you ass anyway. He come to me, I’ll handle it, but you better be ready . . . right, I never heard any of this, so you try deal with it. Pay hospital in cash and get him a ticket back to Germany.”

He hung up. “Damn tourist, trying to steal some coral on a dive and get a bad cut.” Joost had a chiseled face that defied age. And his dark eyes were full of long-ago sadness. “Now he say he gonna sue dive operator. And him the one breakin’ the law. I hear any more about it, he gonna be in my holding pen, right there in the back. Get his attention. Sometimes around here, habeas corpus kinda slips my mind for a week or two, and then matters have a way of resolving themselves.”

“All in a day’s work in Paradise, Joost. So how the hell are you? Long time.”

“What you doin’ sneaking all the way down here?” He pumped Alex’s hand.

“Glad you here. T’ink I need you, mon.”

“What’s the problem, amigo? But first how about you bag it for the day and we retire to Josie’s for a cold one?”

“First t’ings first, mon.” Chief Vliet bore a troubled expression as he grabbed his car keys out of a drawer. “I got show you somethin’. It’s at the locker plant ’cross town.”

“What the hell’s going on, Joost. What’s all the cloak and dagger stuff? This is Bonaire, for Chrissake.”

“I goin’ show you something worse than Guatemala, mon. There we know who do the deeds. This t’ing, mon, like nuttin’ I ever see.”

The next thing Alex Archer knew, they were in the freezing locker of the local meat wholesaler, out on Airport Road. Joost walked them to the back and then opened a black garbage bag. Inside was the bloody, mangled, half-eaten remains of one of the multitude of feral donkeys that had overrun the island.

Well, Alex thought with relief, at least it’s not another kid. All the same, this is no way to start a visit. Come on, gimme a break here.

“This the way he was found, mon,” Joost was saying as he stared down in what clearly was still disbelief. He obviously hadn’t gotten his mind around the sight, and Alex knew this was a man who’d seen plenty. “Or so the guy tell me. He say somebody throw it in his back yard. He live on the coastal road, up north. So, you tell me, A.A., what kind animal can do this t’ing? We got Bengal tiger roaming ‘round here everybody fail to notice?”

Alex studied the carcass for a long moment, examining the teeth rips and trying to make sense of the sight.

“You know, you’re right about that. I can’t imagine anything less than a Big Cat that could do something like this. Or maybe a grizzly. The strength in the jaw muscle. No wolf can rip like that. Could it be a croc?”

“They ain’t no crocs down here, mon. And no bear. Just housecat and lizard. So what you t’ink we ought do?”

This was chilling. Alex sensed that his carefully scheduled solo sail was about to hit the shoals. He had to stay and help Joost.

“There’s only one way to start,” he said. “I’ve got to set up some bait and try to get a look at it. What if we go up to the Northern shoreline tonight, where you say somebody found this, and tie a donkey to a stake and watch?”

They didn’t shoot animals on Bonaire, and he wanted to capture it alive anyway. But how? He didn’t have a clue what it was. His first guess was, somebody secretly had a Big Cat for a pet and it got loose. But whatever it was, it was vicious and strong and liked to kill.

“Okay, mon, I get you a donkey and a trailer. For tonight. And a pistol.”

“And a trailer hitch for the car.” Alex looked at him. “Hey, want to come along, mi amigo? Catch up on old times.”

“I love you, mon, but I don’ t’ink so.”

He left it to Joost to make the arrangements and headed back to the hotel. He didn’t want Joost to know how concerned he was. Joost claimed there wasn’t a Big Cat loose on the island, but though it sounded crazy, he wasn’t so sure. The interior of the island was thinly populated and leopards and jaguars are shy, elusive, and nocturnal and have been known to co-exist near human populations for years and never be detected.

Of course, they don’t throw carcasses over back yard fences, but he knew enough about Bonaire to know that not every utterance you hear is necessarily the stark letter of truth. There’s usually an element of poetic license. So who knew how or where the guy actually found the darned thing.

The pint of Amstel with Joost was going to have to wait. He could have a long night ahead. A carefree sailing trip had turned into a game of Big Cat and mouse, and he wasn’t the cat. It was always a thrill but it was also a little scary. Sometimes out there you’re not necessarily the top of the food chain.

DAY TWO: Bonaire

Chapter Six

August 7 Wednesday, 3:29 PM

Gene-Tech Laboratory at

Nolan Pharma Facility, Rincon

Charlize honestly didn’t know what to expect. She had her own fully equipped lab in New York, pursuing her own work, and she had never been invited to visit the proprietary Nolan Pharma facility near Rincon on Bonaire. In fairness, the security thing cut both ways. Just because you worked at a Nolan lab or plant in New Jersey or Switzerland or Bonaire didn’t mean you got to waltz into her NY lab either. In both cases, it was strictly need-to-know. The insularity suited the competitive personality of cutting edge researchers: temperamental, high strung, Type Triple A.

The one-story cinderblock facility was set two miles back from the main highway and surrounded by a chain-link fence, with a high-security lobby. The visiting scientists who came for projects were welcome to stay in a small dormitory on the premises if on a brief visit, or use company-supplied housing down in the capital of Kralendijk if they were going to be there long enough to actually take up residence.

The staff and players of the New York Wolverines were in neither category. To carry out what amounted to a completely illegal clinical trial by a Gene-Tech research team, the Wolverines’ season preparations had been relocated to the island.

The New York sports media were beside themselves. Where were the Wolverines? Why were they not allowed to cover their pre-season camp? There were even several lawsuits filed to get Buck Press to divulge their location; but to no avail. The team had quietly held several pre-camp workouts where the majority of the rookies, and some of the veterans, had been cut. The remainder had been bivouacked for the summer in the empty Rincon High School, where they had been given high-end cots and gym showers and a cafeteria staffed by Americans. They were scrimmaging on the school soccer field, now re-chalked into a gridiron, whose location was conveniently near Nolan Pharma’s Gene-Tech lab. It made it easy to shuttle the players back and forth for procedures and tests.

As the SUV pulled into a parking slot two spaces away from the front entrance, she took measure of the place. It felt completely alien. The building, easily the size of two city blocks, was short on windows but that severity was mitigated to some degree by rows of rapidly-growing cordia trees with reddish-orange flowers along the sides.

The glass and steel lobby had not one but two armed guards, locals in uniform with automatic pistols. She almost remarked to Harley that this seemed a bit spooky, but then she decided to wait till she knew more. She still had no idea what was going on.

“Cap is probably down in the media room looking over scrimmage tapes from this morning,” Harley said. “Cap Hunter’s the head coach. I thought I’d start off by getting him to show you some of the workout videos to give you an idea of what I’ve achieved here.”

He sounded very confident, and open, so what was the problem?

She was going to ask if she could see Tim or Rachel, in hopes they might be more explicit than Harley about why the hell she was here, but before she could he was ushering her into a dimly lit room with a 50-inch plasma monitor and makeshift theater seating.

When Harley made cursory introductions, she got the impression Coach Hunter was expecting her. For one thing, he didn’t ask why she was there. For another, he seemed be sizing her up.

“Glad to meet you,” he declared, diffidence in his voice. “Guess it’s fair to say there’s good news and bad news. If you want to see some of the good news, I can show you. Fortunately, none of the bad news is on video. At least not yet, God help us.”

“We’ve taped the morning tests for the last couple of months,” Harley intervened. “Prepare to have your socks blown off.”

While Hunter was setting up, she looked him over and found herself wondering about his coaching skills. He looked over the hill, with a complexion that suggested heavy reliance on single-malt nerve medicine; but then it was a high-stress job. More alarming, his eyes were those of a trapped animal. Something was going on that was destroying him and she felt a twinge of pity. What had Harley subjected this man to?

She was a fan of pro football, watching a night game whenever she could. It was perfect television content, she often thought: an inevitable act of violence every thirty seconds. Though she didn’t have the time or the reservoir of mental energy to closely track individual rankings, as a New Yorker she was sadly aware that the Wolverines had been laboring in the depths of the cellar for the past several seasons. She’d caught a couple of their games late last year and felt sorry for the way they were hammered. These were guys who needed a miracle. Maybe that explained Hunter’s seeming despair.

“This is from this morning’s testing,” he was saying as he punched a “play” button. “We’ve just had a horrible accident and lost one of our starters, but I’ve tried to hold it together and keep pushing.”

She watched awhile in silence. They were working out on an amateur-looking field and their blue and white uniforms were covered with mud; but this team was not about appearances.

My God, what had Harley done? They began with a timed hundred-meter dash that looked more like the Olympics than a row of two-hundred-and-fifty pound hulks in full gear, helmets, and cleats. The quarterback could throw the ball end zone to end zone, and on one pass interception, a player easily jumped at least his own height into the air. The Wolverines had speed and strength you wouldn’t have thought humanly possible. Could she believe her own eyes?

“Well,” Hunter was saying as he switched off the video, “what do you think?”

She was wondering, had Harley taken one of her early DNA experiments and, by injecting the genes that produce growth hormone, produced over-muscled “superman”? Was that what this was about?

“I don’t know what to say. But I take it that there’re some unexpected...”

“Well, like I said, there’s only video of the good news.” Hunter reached and turned up the lights. He was unsuccessfully attempting a smile with his bloodshot eyes. “These boys can run circles around any other team in the NFL. Nobody has scouted our practices because we planned it that way and damned well kept a lid on everything. Unless somebody’s got a space satellite, nobody knows what they’re about to be up against. Our first game is gonna be a day to remember in football history. They’ll yell steroids, but these guys’ll test clean as a baby. We’ve got ourselves a winning machine here. If we can just iron out a few personality kinks, we’ve all got Super Bowl rings in our future.”

“Oh, so that’s why I’m here?” Charlize asked, still staring at the blank plasma screen and puzzling. Something felt incomplete. “To iron out ‘personality kinks’?”

Reflecting on what she’d just seen, she thought there was something about the way these Olympic-caliber athletes moved that didn’t seem quite natural, though she couldn’t put her finger on what it was. It was as though their “body language” was communicating in a foreign tongue. “So, when is somebody going to tell me what’s going on?” she said finally.

“We’ll get to that as necessary.” Harley’s voice came out of the shadows at the rear, attempting to sound laid back. “‘Need to know.’”

She whirled to face him, feeling really frustrated. “You’ve clearly pumped up their muscle mass. Except they’re not lab animals, Harley. They’re human subjects. I still can’t believe it. Never mind unethical. How about criminal? Whichever it is, you’ve got no idea what the possible side effects might be.” She was glaring at him. “You idiot. You’ve got a Gene-Tech lab doing human experiments without any FDA, or NIH, or even Institutional Review Board approval. And now you’ve created some ‘personality kinks’? What the hell does that mean?” She was steaming. “Christ, I don’t want any part of this.”

Cap Hunter stirred uncomfortably. “I’ve had real mixed feelings myself. But DNA modification is technically not yet covered by any league rules, so I agreed to it in a weak moment. Then we had that accident—probably more to come . . . no use to go on pretending everything’s hunky-dory. Next thing and somebody’s gonna snap and kill somebody.”

“So you think the entire team is about to go postal?” Charlize turned to watch Harley amble forward. “You shit, this is the first thing you should have told me.” She exhaled with exasperation. “Look, I don’t want my name anywhere near this criminal enterpri...”

“Hey,” he interjected, “not a problem. This project doesn’t exist. It’s top secret. It’s dark. Like the old Lockheed ‘skunkworks’.”

“So far,” she said, trying to exhale and regain her sanity. “But this ‘side effect,’ whatever it is, has got to be dealt with, and then the program has to be terminated immediately. If one whisper about these illegal clinical trials gets out, you’ll bring down Gene-Tech and all of us with you!”

“Then you have a stake in seeing this project succeed.”

Well, she was tantalized by his results. The unethical, irresponsible bastard.

“As long as I’m here I think I’d like to start by seeing some of these all-star athletes in the flesh,” she said. “Enough home movies.”

“Sure. That’s next.” Harley nodded to Cap. “Are they ready?”

“You just wanted the three, right?” he said, checking his watch. “They should be down in Room 34 now, the testing facility.” He turned to Charlize. “He’ll take you. It’s just as well if I’m not there for this. Makes the boys even more paranoid.”

As they walked down the immaculate, fluorescent-lit hallway, Harley gave her a glowing capsule summary of each of the three players she would meet.

“Look, I’m damned proud of what I’ve achieved here,” he declared. “Take Dutch Mathis, the quarterback. Up until a couple of seasons ago, a lot of people thought he was the best in the NFL, emphasis on was. Had the best throwing arm in the business, unerring eye, but his strength was going. Past few years, he’s been gradually losing the long bomb.”

“Well,” she said, “I thought I recognized him and if he was the guy doing the passing on those videos, I’d say that’s no longer a problem.”

“Thanks to me,” he grinned, slightly maniacally, and then continued. “Another big success story is Bobby Rath. In the good old days, about four seasons ago, he was the league’s superstar receiver. He was fierce, fearless, and confident. He and Dutch were a scoring machine; but then he began losing his speed. Next thing he knew, he was getting creamed by some 280-pound gorilla every other play. He was on the disabled list half the time and he eventually lost his nerve, although he was the only one who didn’t realize it. Well, wait till you see him now. He fears neither man nor beast and he runs like a gazelle. Baddass MF.”

On either side of the long hallway were ultra-sterile clean rooms and laboratories containing the millions of dollars of instruments needed for molecular biology. There was a young, bustling staff—fresh-faced Americans in whites—and Charlize felt herself being stared at respectfully by several of them. Then she remembered that her photo had been featured in the company newsletter half a dozen times. Though a loner, she was a much-talked-about “wonder kid” around Gene-Tech.

“Oh,” Harley went on, “last but hardly least, there’s ‘Tiny’ Bledsoe. The other guys have all started to look up to him in some kind of weird way that I don’t get. He’s supposed to be here too, but you never know what he’ll do, especially lately. Back in the day, he was the great white hope in the line, nobody ever got past him, but last season he was playing hurt all over and the line couldn’t hold for shit. Dutch was getting sacked on every third play. As “Tiny” went, so went the offensive line. It didn’t look good. But now . . . well, let me just say I’d think twice about trying to drive a Mack truck past him.”

He paused at a door labeled “Testing: No Admittance” and took out a magnetic card.

“We’ll run some checks here on sensory enhancement and then we’ll go out to the track for the physical numbers, the muscle stuff. Get ready to forget everything you ever knew about mortal human capabilities.”

She walked in to see three massive males in T-shirts and gym shorts. They were lounging around a juice bar, where a staffer was whipping up some kind of health-potent smoothie in a huge blender. Charlize thought she might have recognized one or maybe two of them from newspapers and TV but she couldn’t keep the names straight. Then, when she looked at them more closely, it was all she could do to keep from gasping.

Maybe you wouldn’t notice it that much if they were in uniforms, with helmets and all those pads, but seeing them this way, their muscles bulging everywhere, even on their forehead, they seemed surreal, like skin-colored duplicates of the Incredible Hulk.

Dutch Mathis was the most interesting of the three. He had a wide brow and deeply intelligent eyes. As the quarterback, he clearly was the brains of the bunch. However, to her it seemed his mind was moving in a different plane of reality than the one where everybody else was standing. He was moving about the room, as though constantly searching for a receiver.

Bobby Rath was the yin to his yang. He was lithe and built for speed. His limbs, even his face, were sinewy. His eyes seemed focused on infinity, as though whatever he was looking for could be expected to arrive over the horizon. But they also were constantly sweeping the room, as if he was making sure there was nothing he was going to miss.

“Tiny” Bledsoe was a human contradiction. Physically he was a walking meat rack, a muscled mound of pure flesh; but his face and his blue eyes bespoke a depth of humanity that had nothing to do with his physicality. Harley had said he had a strange power over the others, a reservoir of respect. Even now, she felt it; but what it was was less clear.

“Hi guys,” Harley said cheerily, “this is Dr. Russell. We, uh, went to school together and she’s been doing some very important work in your area. She’d like to sit in on the tests this morning.”

The three just examined her with a curious expression and stirred, but none attempted any kind of greeting. It was as though Harley had just introduced his pet raccoon. She was of no interest. Though “Tiny” Bledsoe’s gaze did linger longer than the rest.

“Okay,” Harley went on, as though pretending not to notice their indifference as he set out three sets of files on a table for her, “here’re the data from last week’s tests. For comparison. Why don’t we get started?”

As he began putting them through the tests, she noticed that they began to grow mildly hostile to each other and increasingly competitive; almost coming to blows over who went first in a test. Well, she wondered, could all this anti-social behavior be part of the “side effects”? Hmmm.

But the results!

They could hear sounds to 30,000 Hz, when most people are lucky to get past half that. Their eyesight was 20/200; they could virtually read a newspaper across the room. In fact, all their senses were much more acute. It was as though their mortal bodies had been re-inhabited and granted truly superhuman abilities.

She was stunned. This was not about inducing the production of this or that hormone in certain designated cells. Harley had turned back the clock a million years, to activate capabilities humans used to have. For example: half our olfactory nerves have been shut down over the millennia. They’re still there in our nose but our DNA has turned them off. Our bodies are nothing if not efficient. They concluded that we don’t need as many olfactory nerves since we don’t rely on olfactory information the way we did when we were eluding saber-toothed tigers in the dark. Our brain now uses that neurological real estate for something else. If, by tinkering with DNA, you could turn those nerves on again, we could track something for miles based on the smell of its footprints. But the real question was, how had Harley done it?

Now she felt herself losing sight of her better judgment. Who could walk away from something so astonishing? She had to learn what he had done and how he did it.

“I think you’d better talk to me,” she finally said to Harley, trying to regain her senses. “I don’t even know where to start asking you questions.”

“Not yet,” he grinned. “Let’s take this show outside. I’ve built a testing area out behind the lab. Time for some real-world applications.”

The afternoon had turned humid and miserable; it was August after all. The twittering of tropical birds had given way to the buzzing singsong of crickets trying to move enough air to keep cool. A makeshift gravel track had been installed and marked off in ten-yard increments, like a football field. The equatorial sun was waning but the heat was still overpowering.

By now, the three players were openly hostile and nasty to each other, but they threw themselves into the tests as though the humidity and temperature meant nothing to them. Maybe, she thought, it didn’t.

First, it was bench-pressing, then timed sprints, followed by broad jumps. They could easily lift twice their own weight over their heads; doing it as matter-of-factly as if the barbells were a feather pillow. After each test, Harley took their pulse. It had scarcely moved. He recorded the data on a small laptop, grinning with each new entry.

“You’re looking at what could be a whole new set of Olympic records.”

She’d already figured that out. She was in the presence of some new paradigm of human ability. What to make of this brave new world of physicality? It was both thrilling and scary as hell. Just contemplating it was giving her a lump of anxiety in the pit of her stomach.

The other thing was, it was now obvious that their socialization had severely deteriorated. They had the people skills of Neanderthals. They would go out of their way to cut in front of one another, and jostle, and elbow. Was this part of what Harley was striving for? A testosterone-fest?

Finally, she drew him aside and put the question directly.

“What the hell is going on here? It’s like you’ve inserted an ‘unnecessary roughness’ gene.”

“Not now. Why don’t we have a drink later? There’s a little bar here in Rincon. Or we could get together downtown in Kralendijk later on.”

He was so distracted and flying, she wasn’t even sure he realized what she was asking about. In some ways, he seemed as dehumanized as the players. It was as though his body was on autopilot and his mind was elsewhere. It just disturbed her even more.

“Harley, that is not going to happen. The next thing I want to do is go over your protocols. Let’s go back to your lab.”

As they headed toward the building, Dutch Mathis and Bobby Rath marched for the parking lot. Harley was striding on ahead, but “Tiny” Bledsoe held back and then intersected with Charlize and drew her aside. The bravado of the field was suddenly missing. “Word is that you’re the new medical expert. So what the hell’s happening to me?” His deep blue eyes were plaintive now, imploring, nothing like what she’d just witnessed. “I’m the one that almost killed J.D. in the scrimmage. Think I may have paralyzed him for life. Shit, I didn’t mean to. It got dark all of a sudden and something came over me. More and more, there are huge blanks in my memory. I can’t remember what I do at night, or where I was. What’s the matter with me?”

Good question, she thought. What’s going on?

That was when she realized she couldn’t just up and leave on the next plane out. Along with his miracle, Harley Ryan had created a human tragedy.

“Harley,” she caught up with him, “tomorrow I’d like to do a muscle biopsy on anybody who’s been part of this experiment. I need to make arrangements to get tissue samples from the study subjects ASAP.”

“Well, first let’s go back to the Media Room,” he proposed, not really responding. “There’s a guy who’s scheduled to be there that I think you ought to meet.”

DAY TWO: Bonaire

Chapter Seven

August 7 Wednesday, 5:06 PM

Gene-Tech Lab Media Room, Rincon

“It’s permanent!” The alligator boots whipped off the table and smashed to the floor. “God damn it!”

“Buck, that’s what they’re saying at the hospital,” Cap Hunter replied. “Paralyzed from the waist down. Overnight they were hoping . . .” His voice trailed off into despair.

“Things have gone seriously to shit down here,” Press declared angrily. “This ain’t how it was supposed to be.”

Chase “Buck” Press was the owner of the Wolverines and he had been on the same KLM flight from New York that brought Charlize, First Class in his case. He was late-sixties, graying, with a suntan for the ages, and wearing a string tie and a Western cut suit. On the table was a briefcase obviously made from leather from an old saddle with the burned-in inscription, “This Buck don’t stop.” He had a fresh glass of sour mash, neat, in hand.

“Has that woman doctor Lamar claimed he’s sending down got here yet? I told him it’s a God damned emergency. Though I don’t know how many more damned ‘experts’ we can...”

“Just got in.” Hunter was feeling overwhelmed and deeply depressed. “Harley’s showing her around. Maybe she’ll turn out to be smarter than he is.”

“From the looks of things that wouldn’t take a hell of a lot.”

“Just met her. Too soon to tell. Any rate, I’m fed up dealing with Harley.”

“Well, I told Lamar I bought a product from him, so I damned well expect a warrantee.”

Buck Press had been one of the last independent survivors of the Louisiana oil industry. Looking back, he realized that buying the New York Wolverines was the biggest mistake he’d ever made, but it had taken him ten years and the bulk of his fortune to figure that out. It took him considerably less time to realize that his second biggest mistake was hiring his ex brother-in-law as head coach.

The Wolverines had had their last winning season six years ago. As befitted that record, the team’s attendance was in the tank, he could barely give away TV advertising, and he was hemorrhaging millions. Half the players he had under contract should have been sent out to pasture.

He had a dream. If he could just squeeze out a winning season, maybe he could get municipal support for a new stadium, even move the franchise to a new city, and start a whole new business model. The way he figured it, the only thing that could save him was some kind of performance enhancement, but it couldn’t be steroids. It had to be something that wouldn’t show up in the NFL’s drug testing. Then he read about gene therapy and tracked down Gene-Tech.

“Look, I agreed to this DNA stuff, okay,” Cap blurted, his voice welling with frustration. “I wanted to believe too.” He paused in frustration. This was his last shot and he desperately wanted that tub of Gatorade dumped on his head in victory just one more time, then get the boys fitted for Super Bowl rings. He still hoped, but . . . “It’s damned scary, Buck. Fact is, it’s got to where I’m edgy just being out there on the field with them. Why did I ever go along with this?”

“Hell, it seemed a good idea at the time,” Press reasoned. “And let me break some news to you. If this bunch of overpaid, over-the-hill, burnouts can’t win their exhibition opener, we’re all gonna be selling apples on a street corner by New Years Day.”

“What do you mean? Pre-season is nothing more than a fancy scrimmage. It doesn’t count for shit. There’s the real season to...”

“Take my word for it,” Press declared ominously and with pain in his voice. “There’s things you don’t need to know. Financial issues, shall we say. We lose that first exhibition game against Seattle, we’re through. So a few days from now, we’re either running a business or we’re Chapter Eleven.” He took another sip of his whiskey. “Does the phrase ‘update your resume’ mean anything to you? I know a coupla down-market high schools.”

There was the sound of a door opening and they turned.

*****

“Charlie,” Harley declared, stalking in, “meet Mr. Chase Press, the distinguished owner of the next Super Bowl champs.”

“Call me Buck,” Press said as he walked over, in a voice that sounded overly friendly. He extended his hand, firm grip. “Lamar tells me he’s sent Gene-Tech’s most creative mind down here to help work out a kink or two.”

“This is Dr. Charlize Russell,” Harley declared. “I just had her watch today’s tests on Bobby, Dutch and Tiny. I don’t think she noticed any ‘kinks’.”

“That a fact?” Press said, his voice still brimming with cordiality. Charlize noticed he was ignoring Harley, boring in on her. “So what did you think?”

Hmmm, she thought, this must be the guy who got on the phone and caused Lamar Nolan to send her down here. Anybody who can read the riot act to Nolan . . .

“I’ve watched the Olympics some and it felt like I was seeing athletes of that caliber, or maybe better,” she said, still trying to decide whether she actually liked Press. He seemed a flamboyant self-promoter, eternally cocksure. He would always be in a sales mode. He was obviously capable of bullying her if need be, wanting her to see the world as he saw it, and that annoyed her, reminding her too much of her father.

Her second impression was that his attempt at synthetic bonhomie was an attempt to mask his stark concern about Harley’s experiment. He was coming out of a dream state of denial; and that made him edgy.

“Damned straight,” Press beamed. She suspected he was a man who succumbed to flattery as readily as he employed it, thinking nobody else could possibly be as devious as he was. “Way it’s goin’ now, these boys are gonna just stroll into the Super Bowl.”

And that’s how you rationalize what you’re doing to them? Charlize thought bitterly.

“So you’ve just gotta help us out a tad,” Press’ impatience was showing through, indicating he was ready to dispense with pleasantries and get down to brass tacks. “Iron out this little personality glitch that’s come up.”

“When players start trying to kill each other,” she observed, signaling fantasy time was over on both sides, “then I’d say it’s a pretty significant ‘glitch’.”

“Well, ma’am, I’m not saying we don’t have an . . . issue, but I also don’t need any damn lectures from Lamar Nolan’s hired help, pardon my French. This thing we’re doing ain’t illegal.”

So much for the velvet glove, she thought. But that’s only half true. If Gene-Tech got caught doing this kind of clinical trial on human subjects in the U. S., the FDA would put them out of business in a heartbeat.

Then Press went on. “What I’m getting at is, nobody’s saying this don’t need to be handled in a discreet manner. But it, by God, has to be handled. Nobody told me my boys would start turning on each other. So you’ve damned well got to...”

“That’s because this kind of research never goes in a straight line,” Harley interjected with a scornful glare. “We’re in a normal trial-and-error phase right now. I’m going to take care of it.”

Charlize sensed the tension rising in the room. These two self-promoters did not care for each other, at all. Buck Press was blaming Harley and Harley was feeling defensive, which always morphed immediately into anger.

“Look, I didn’t drop my own work and come down here to just re-hash the past,” she said, thinking to change the subject. She didn’t like all the recriminating vibes. “Maybe the first thing I ought to do is get to know the team members a little better. I’m no shrink but I’d like to get a first-hand feeling for these ‘personality issues’ in a more informal setting. And I might as well start tonight. So where are they staying? At a hotel in town?”

“Well, actually no,” Press declared. “I leased the Rincon High School facility, mainly to use their soccer field. We installed some beds, opened up the cafeteria, made it homey. Strict curfews, only beer during the week, no pus . . . no fraternizing with the locals. But I also treat my boys like grown-ups. It’s all on the honor system. Which means the staff don’t go snooping around running bed checks. And I’m sure as hell not gonna have some New York sawbones poking around over there. It’s their private time.”

“Okay.” It made sense. She turned back to Harley. “Then how about a tour of the lab?”

“We’ve both had a long day,” he said, expressionless, almost as though stalling. “Let’s drive back down to town and check you in at the Plaza.”

“I’ve got a better idea,” she said, suddenly fed up with all of them. Time to get out of here, get some space and clarity. She flashed on the adage about feeling like a mushroom: Everybody keeps you in the dark and feeds you bulls–t. Something was going on that nobody wanted her to find out. She could already sense it. “I was promised a company car. I think I’ll take it now and drive myself back down to town. I need some time alone to think.”

“I’m not so sure that’s the wisest idea,” Harley argued. “This island doesn’t squander a lot of money on road signs. It’s pretty easy to get lost.”

“Harley, I’m a big girl now.” What was this? More attempts at intimidation? Damn him. “Guess I’ll just have to take my chances.”

She offered a brusque farewell to Buck Press and Cap Hunter and then in the hall she honed in on Harley, “All right, I want muscle tissue samples from everybody in the trials, tomorrow morning. I don’t care how you do it, but make it happen.”

“No problem. I actually took a set just yesterday, standard procedure, once a week.”

“Good. Then could you get me some car keys? My suitcase is in the lobby. I’ll see you there.”

Ten minutes later she was in a Saab headed down the coast, alone, her suitcase in the back seat. The sea along the coastal road was magical. The sun was dropping into the ocean like a flaming stone and the air was fresh with salt and surf.

Well, heck, she told herself, maybe it was good to get away from her New York lab occasionally and rejuvenate her psyche. The tropical unwind she always experienced in such environs was descending and she could sense her muscles uncoiling. Okay, she knew she was a Type A and only here, with the wind and sea, could she feign a Type B. But once in a while it was good to have some down time and recharge.

Charlize both loved and loathed her life. She loved the feeling she was on the verge of performing miracles, yet she hated that sometimes she felt she was giving so much she had nothing left for herself. Mainly she hated being alone. It would be nice to have somebody, to wake up in the morning with someone warm next to you. The touch, the scent of a man was sorely missing in her life. At one time it was Harley, and before him a laid-back idealist named Alex, but both relationships had ended badly and since then there’d been lunches with a few people around Downtown Manhattan but there was not enough chemistry to push anything. This wasn’t how she’d expected things to turn out. . . .

Now she remembered that on the drive up she’d seen a lovely spot not far south of the lab, a place where carved steps led down the cliff and to the sea. A pale, almost full moon was starting to show through the twilight and she decided that a swim might help clear her head and prepare her for the heavy lab work coming up tomorrow. She had thrown a swimsuit into her bag at the last minute, but the truth was, this would be a great moment for a skinny dip, put a little freedom into her regimented life. The scene felt pretty isolated. She decided to go for it.

She didn’t realize it, but the location was actually a famous dive spot called Five Hundred Steps. There weren’t 500, but nobody had ever bothered to count the actual number and the name had a nice ring to it.

She parked by the roadside, then carefully made her way down the rock staircase. When she reached the shore, it was soft sand. She knew that swimming alone at twilight in unfamiliar waters was not smartest thing in the world to do, but she felt she had enough water skills to handle it. Sometimes being in water, even in the shower, got her brain to innovate and operate outside the box.

She left her clothes piled on a large white rock and dove in, the sea salt delicious on her tongue. The water was warm and languorous against her bare skin, and she stroked blissfully out, wanting to let her mind float free. As she drifted on her back, looking at the emerging moon, she found herself mulling over her surprise reunion with Harley Ryan. Not all the memories of him were bad. There were times when his crazy genius was a turn-on; but now he was scary. He had definitely undergone a personality transplant, and it wasn’t . . .

Shit!

Somebody was coming down the steps. It was a man and he had what looked like a pistol shoved into his waistband. Shit! Shit! Shit!

But wait, that lanky stride. Only one guy in the world walked like that, like he owned the earth and had just dropped by to check it out. He predated Harley and only later had she come to realize she deeply missed his sanity, and his holistic take on the world. He always was at ease with his environment, no matter how screwed up things were.

Could it be him? No, that was utterly impossible. Here, at this forgotten end of the earth? How could . . . Good God. Yes, YES.

It was as if she was tracking down her past men, to the literal end of the earth. But—and this was the really weird part—she liked the idea Alex Archer had a gun. This scene was already starting to feel dangerous, and he knew how to use it.

DAY TWO: Bonaire

Chapter Eight

August 7 Wednesday, 7:10 PM

Northern Shore, Five Hundred Steps

Alex had finished staking out a young donkey colt, brought in a covered horse trailer, on a deserted windswept heath overlooking the north coast, a well-known scuba destination. The critter was crippled in one hind leg and Joost figured he didn’t have much of a chance of surviving anyway. He consoled himself that a quick end might be more humane than a lingering one. Alex put him at the very edge of the cliff so he could watch from down below, and he immediately began braying plaintively. A brilliant moonlit evening was in the cards so Alex didn’t figure he’d need night goggles. There was already another vehicle stationed on the edge of the road, a new Saab, but nobody was around. Strange. Car trouble, possibly.

He’d parked next to it and now he was headed down the stone staircase to the water’s edge, thinking that would be an inconspicuous and plausible place to wait for dark. He also wanted to stay downwind from the donkey lure and fortunately, that’s where the steps would put him. Now he just had to wait. He figured nothing was likely to happen for a couple of hours, but still, the scene made him nervous. He’d brought along a pair of 80-mm binoculars from the boat and, just in case, he had a pearl-handled .38 that Joost had lent him. Right now he wanted to see this thing before deciding what to do. As usual, what he really wanted was to take it alive.

He was almost all the way down the cliff stairs when he noticed somebody floating on their back about fifty feet offshore. The water was placid enough that you could do that. Long dark hair, probably a woman. Okay, Saab mystery solved. Jesus, he thought with chagrin, must be a crazy tourist. Didn’t anybody alert them about what’s on the loose up here?

Then he remembered Joost was keeping it quiet at the moment—which he thought was a lousy idea. This proved it. The tourists should be warned.

Then she saw him and started stroking in. It was, indeed, a woman. The closer she got, the more familiar she looked, and then bang.

Oh my God! This is too crazy by half.

At first, he thought his eyes were deceiving him. Okay, some truth. His heart flipped. Time stood still. He was in a maudlin “second time around” ballad.

When Dr. Charlize Russell was an undergraduate at Columbia, before she even knew Harley Ryan, he was just back from the Death Squad killing fields of Guatemala and all fired up about man’s inhumanity and he got Columbia to let him teach an adjunct course based on watchdog materials published by Human Rights Watch. He’d gone to Guatemala the summer after he graduated and was roughly three years older than she was, hardly more than a kid himself. He also was not at all sure what he wanted to do with the rest of his life. The experience in Guatemala had done some heavy things to his head, readjusting his grasp of the degree of evil seemingly normal humans are capable of. Did all of us have that in us somewhere down deep, he kept asking himself. To this day, he was still working on the answer.

Anyway, she was a student in his class and he was knocked out by her. She had a genius-caliber mind and she was a serious looker. He sensed the chemistry between them and after the term was over, he asked her out, feeling it was no longer unethical. It was the best three and a half months of his life.

The thing was, they were opposites in many ways and at the beginning of any relationship that can be a turn-on. Whereas she thought he was overly earnest and questioning of received truths, she was a focused, hard-driving Pre-Med achiever, eye on a singular ball. Then she took stock and decided things were going too fast and panicked and pulled the plug. Ever after, he thought it was a triumph of her head over her heart. Whatever, it was torrid romance interruptus.

Next thing he knew, she was dating some comer classmate named Harley Ryan. He never actually met the prick.

He ended up in a short-lived, miserable marriage to somebody else. He thought it was partially a rebound. The only positive thing that resulted from it was his daughter Amy.

He hadn’t seen Charlie in literally a decade and yet he could never quite purge her from his mind. He remembered little things, like the scent of her hair, the way she brushed her teeth, how she would eat a fig (skin on) . . .

This was incredible. Would she even remember him?

As he approached the shore, she stood up. My God, he thought, she was naked as God made her, and as stunning as he recalled. She waved and started to shout something up at him; but he motioned for her to please not.

She must have recognized him. Be cool now, he lectured himself.

When he finally reached her, he whispered. “Of all the gin joints in all . . . Charlie, what the heck are you doing down here?”

“Alex, love, I could ask you the same thing,” she whispered back, clearly feeling delight at seeing him. “Why do you have a gun? And why are we whispering? Do we all have laryngitis or something?”

She was seemingly oblivious to the fact she was clad only in the costume she was born in. It told him she hadn’t changed all that much over the years, still an unselfconscious natural creature. She looked ravishing in the fading light, perfect skin and not a superfluous ounce.

“We’re whispering because—this could just be a rumor—but there’s possibly something on the loose up here that we don’t want to have a close encounter with. That braying donkey up there is supposed to lure it in so I can have a look at it, from a safe distance.”

“What . . . what ‘something’!” Her eyes acquired an edge of alarm as they darted up to the top of the steps.

“Don’t worry, I’m a decent shot.” He tried to smile reassuringly. God, it was great to see her again. Did her being down here alone mean . . . ?

“Still, let’s get back in the water.” She was turning.

In his heart of hearts, he knew that was a bad idea, taking his eye off the ball, so to speak. Unprofessional. On the other hand, he was certain it was too early in the evening for his mysterious creature to appear.

Besides, Joost wasn’t paying him. It wasn’t like he actually had a job. That fact lowered his usual standards of professionalism. No reason he couldn’t knock off for a swim with a woman who once cared about him, if only fleetingly, alas.

“Okay,” he said, “but I’ll have to figure out what to wear.”

“My God, Alex, are you still a prig? Just come on in. I won’t be seeing anything I haven’t seen before.”

On the face of it, it seemed right, not to mention sexy and voyeuristic. Skinny-dipping together after a decade apart.

The ocean was like a placid lake, warm and equatorial salty. As the donkey continued to bray, they half floated as they paddled out. For him it was like a miracle. She’d had sort of a guest bedroom in his mind since he’d thought about her more than he should have over the years. Maybe he should be heartened that she still recognized him as he came down the stairs in the half-light.

Given how things turned out, it pained him to admit that Charlize had been an emotional life raft for him at a particularly dark, existential, condition-of-man moment. He could never have imagined how either one of them would end up ten years later.

“Hey A., this is a hell of a way to meet again.” She focused on him as she gently stroked out, on her back. “And you tell me you’re down here tracking some . . . creature? How on earth –?”

He gave her a minimalist quantity of truth he thought best fit the circumstances. Actually here to pick up a boat, this little side trip just came up out of the blue, etc., etc.

“So is that what you do for a living? Deliver boats? My God. You were always trying to figure out what to do with your life and the best you could come up with is UPS on water wings? Alex, you still make me nuts.”

“A guy could do worse.”

“Okay, I get it.” She finally smiled. “You did do the animal thing you were thinking about? Is that why somebody got you down here to catch this whatever it is that’s on the loose? You’re this crafty animal behaviorist now?”

“You make it sound worse than delivering boats for a living.”

She tactfully let that one pass without a remark. “So what do you think this ‘something’ is that you’re trying to catch?”

“Don’t really have a good idea. A Big Cat maybe. Hey, a few years back a guy kept a 400-pound Bengal tiger in a tenement apartment in Harlem for years. Neighbors just thought he went through a lot of raw chicken. Cops had to rappel down the side of the building and have a sharpshooter tranquilize him through an open window while he roared. Maybe somebody down here had a pet cub that grew up and got loose. Doubt it’s a lion. Most likely a jaguar or leopard.”

“Sounds like fun. Maybe I’ll stay with you and watch.”

”That makes you braver than my thick-and-thin buddy, the local police chief, but I still don’t like the idea of you being in danger. And besides, this could take all night.”

“Well, Alex,” she laughed, “I do know what it’s like to spend the night with you.”

“You know,” he said, drifting closer to her, “I don’t get the sense you’ve been on Bonaire all that long. Wanna tell me what’s cooking?”

“Let’s just swim,” she said, stroking away. “You know, Alex, I still think about you. That was a rough time of life for me—I was getting a lot of shit from my Dad—and you were . . . therapeutic.”

Somehow, “therapeutic” was less than he’d hoped for.

“Well, maybe someday you could meet my daughter and tell her that. She says I drive her crazy. So she has the opposite opinion.”

“My God,” she stopped stroking, “You have a daughter. I kind of kept up with you third-hand for a while, but then –”

“Well, I kind of kept up with you too. Last I heard you were still living with what’s-his-name, the boy genius.” The donkey brayed particularly plaintively at that moment, as though to give voice to her feelings for Harley Ryan.

“Didn’t work out.”

“Neither did my marriage.”

They touched inadvertently, or maybe not, and he felt a tingle from her bare skin. He was starting to wonder if he’d dropped into some back-to-the-future alternate universe.

This might explain why he hadn’t really kept track of the fact that they’d actually drifted at least a hundred yards off the coast, carried by the current. And it had gotten dark, save for the stupefyingly beautiful moonlight. He was so transported he hadn’t noticed. There was utter silence around them. It was so peace—

Shit!

The donkey!

The night was silent because the plaintive braying up the hill had ceased.

Then he heard an animal scream.

Christ!

“Charlie, stay out here! Whatever you do, don’t go back till I call you.”

“What –?”

“That thing, whatever it is, is up there. I’m going in. Just you don’t go in.”

He set a new outdoor record for the hundred-yard freestyle. When he got to the shore, he didn’t bother with his clothes. Who cared? He just grabbed the .38 and rushed up the steps.

When he got to the top, he gazed in horror at what had happened. All that was left of the donkey was the back hindquarter that was attached to the tether. The rest had been ripped off and was missing.

“Shit. Shit. Shit.”

He’d seriously screwed up. He still had no idea what was out there and he’d completely blown the best chance he was going to have to find out.

Whatever it was, it was gone; and because of the gravel, there weren’t even any tracks.

The scariest part was, he now suspected that this thing was smart enough to know that a trap had been set for it. It waited till he was stupidly too far away to spring the trap and then it moved in. Probably there would be no point in trying the same thing again. At least not for a while. A creature this wily rarely falls for the same trick back-to-back.

He kept his guard up as he went back down the steps but he knew there really was no need. This thing was not a man-killer, not as long as there was an inexhaustible supply of donkeys on the island. Like most large predators, it instinctively knew that man could equal danger.

After Charlize swam in and they put their clothes back on, he explained what a screw-up he was. He didn’t blame her; she was merely the unwitting enabler of his self-indulgence. Sometimes, he noted to himself, it’s also known as thinking with something besides your brain.

He put the donkey haunch in the trailer, trying to think of what he was going to tell Joost, and then he had an idea. Well, a hope.

“Where’re you staying?”

“At the Plaza. Best place in town, so I’m told.”

“Hey, me too. Want to rendezvous at the beachside bar for dinner?”

“Sure. But don’t get too ambitious. Re-runs take time.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it.”

He watched the Saab speed away and had a very unprofessional thought. He realized he cared more about the prospect of catching up with Charlize than he cared about catching whatever creature Joost had lurking around the island.

But it was here. Something was here.

DAY TWO: Bonaire

Chapter Nine

August 7 Wednesday, 9:15 PM

Nolan Pharmaceutical Research Lab,

near Rincon

Harley Ryan was in his lab vetting the tissue data Charlize had asked for. The trick was going to be to give her as little as he could get away with.

Damn her. She was here to spy on him for Lamar Nolan, that was obvious. The best thing now was to stonewall and get her to leave.

To top it off, he’d been running late and now dark had descended, which meant he wasn’t sure if he should leave at all. Recently, going out after dark had resulted in strange memory lapses. He’d wake up back at the lab, sometimes with his clothes muddied and torn. He’d reviewed the security records in the lobby and found that he was checking in at times that ranged from one to four in the morning. He’d actually signed in but he had no memory of anything.

What was he doing out there in the dark? In rational moments, it terrified him.

Around fifteen minutes earlier, he’d taken a stroll down the deserted hall to have a look out of the glass-windowed lobby. The parking lot was illuminated but he still got an odd sensation from the inky darkness beyond. The lab was isolated so there was no glow in the sky from streetlights. In fact, the town of Rincon had only a few. What lay out there was total blackness and it called to him to come and immerse himself in it. It took all his willpower to resist.

The truth was he’d once been a night owl who did his best thinking when daylight was gone, but now, even this early in the evening, he was finding it hard to concentrate.

And now Charlie had showed up to play with his head. Now of all times he needed to think straight. Tomorrow she was going to come down on the project with guns blazing. He’d seen her walk in and take over troubled situations before, and she had an eerie sense of where to look for the shit.

How long before she figured out what was really going on and when she did . . . he didn’t want to think about the fallout.

There was a hesitant knock on the door that he recognized as Tim’s. Timorous Tim. Annoyed at being disturbed, he went over and zipped his card to release the interior security lock. He didn’t need this. What now?

“Had a feeling you might still be here,” Timmy said as he nervously slipped through. “Hope I’m not disturbing you or anything.”

Tim’s self-effacing personality had recently come to grate on some nerve Harley hadn’t known he had. In fact, for the last few weeks just about everything bugged him.

Harley and Rachel had kept Tim in the dark concerning the real secret of the research. But he was useful as a skilled lab techie.

“What do you want, Timmy? I’m getting some data ready for Charlie tomorrow.”

“I just wondered if you’ve heard the rumors.” He seemed hesitant to bring it up. “About something killing and mutilating the donkeys around Rincon? People are getting a little scared. I was thinking, maybe we should hire some extra security for the parking lot?”

“You want New Jersey to approve more guard service because of a rumor?” Harley snorted. Now he was really annoyed, though he wasn’t quite sure why. “I have enough trouble with requisitions for things we actually need.”

“The thing is, it’s a little more than a rumor. Too many people say they’ve seen a ripped-up donkey carcass. But it’s all pretty recent, like the last three weeks.”

That’s an interesting coincidence, Harley realized. That’s about when I started blacking out after dark, then showing up here in the middle of the night. If something is roaming around, I could be in danger.

“Anyway,” Tim went on, “I think at the very least we ought to circulate a memo warning people to take precautions. And maybe have one of the lobby security guys escort people to their cars if they’re working late. And incidentally, I haven’t seen Charlie yet, but whoever sees her next should warn her.”

“She’s supposed to start here in the morning. When I decide there’s anything to this, I’ll make sure she gets the word. I don’t want her to get distracted by overblown stories peddled by the superstitious locals.”

Now Harley was experiencing a strange memory phenomenon. It was as though he had two memories: the one he’d had all his life and a second, alien memory that for a millisecond now and then could break through the firewall that his brain had erected, like a flash hallucination. It was as if he was seeing things in the dark that he shouldn’t be seeing, greenish forms in split-second motion.

“Harley, for God’s sake, you can’t just not tell her. We –”

“You know, you may be losing sight of the fact that I’m still in charge of this project. I’ll decide what to tell Charlie and when. In fact, Timmy, I think it’s best that you just stay away from her entirely. Avoid all contact unless Rachel or I are in the room.”

“That’s crazy. Charlie’s here to help –”

“Her involvement in this project is on a very limited basis, and I’ll decide exactly what she has to be told.” Now he could feel himself really getting pissed.

“Jesus, you’re turning weird, you realize that?” Tim had backed away and actually appeared pale.

“Then just get the hell out and stop bothering me.”

Harley watched him back out of the room, startled and confused.

Why did I do that just now, he found himself wondering. What’s going on with me?

Then he had another of those hallucinatory flashes. It was pitch dark and he was leaping through the air and then he collided with a green form and that form was Timmy and he grabbed his head, twisted it around, and broke his neck.

DAY THREE: Bonaire

Chapter Ten

August 8 Thursday, 9:15 AM

Kralendijk

The next morning Charlize met Alex at the breakfast buffet down by the beach. As he watched her blithely grab a croissant, then order up a Salmon omelet with capers and Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee, he was trying to decide what to make of the preceding evening, that is what he groggily remembered after the second bottle of Bordeaux and ending up in her room for a nightcap. What happened next was the unspoken 800-pound gorilla in this morning’s island scene. Maybe, he thought, it was just a very long, delightful dream. She’d said nothing so far.

For her part, Charlize was mildly hung over and mutely wondering how things had gotten so out of hand so quickly. She was also trying not to admit she was glad things went the way they had. In vino veritas? Was it possible she’d missed Alex Archer a lot more than she realized? In truth, this was the sensible Alex she’d hoped would emerge back then and now here he was, or so it seemed. She figured they both were wondering what would happen next. Maybe, she thought, this was a chance to exorcise Harley Ryan once and for all and hook up again with Alex. Maybe this horrible trip had a silver lining, all thanks to a moonlight swim.

Anyway, that was the magic of last night, and this morning was currently just another day in paradise.

The blue sky had dawned brilliantly and the terrace embraced a vista of purest white sand, with a tropical breeze trolling along the shoreline and causing the clusters of manicured palms to murmur.

“That’s Occam’s Razor over there, on the left side of the marina,” Alex was saying as he pointed across the placid harbor. “Thirty-eight feet of pure craftsmanship. Maybe we can work in time for a cruise around the island.”

“That’s a very romantic thought,” she smiled. ”I’d love to. Maybe in a couple of days, after I try and figure out what’s going on with Harley’s project.”

They’d actually sat at the same table the night before, shaken from the debacle up the coast at Five Hundred Steps. As they began catching up, it turned out he was very interested in her DNA work. He’d always been a good listener and when she gave him a quick version, he declared that in a few short minutes he’d learned more about the vast complexity of what God had wrought than he thought was possible for him to know. One thing about Alex: he got stuff. That’s when the second bottle of Bordeaux seemed like an inevitable idea.

“Alex, I’m afraid I maybe seemed a little cagey last night,” she began, pouring some milk into her coffee. “I mean about what I’m doing here.” She smeared jam on a shard of croissant. “But I’m very concerned about what I’ve been shoved into. There’s a problem here that I didn’t cause but unless it gets fixed, everything I’ve done and hope to do could end up being at risk. Long story short, my buyout by Gene-Tech is looking more and more like a deal with the devil.”

“You know,” he said after a moment, “I’ve always wondered how things come to be. For my own part, back when we first knew each other I was all fired up to beat some accountability into the corrupt evildoers of the world. But then reality settled in and I stopped believing it was possible. The wrongdoers had more-powerful means than I did. I was out-gunned. So I decided on a mid-course correction, life-wise, and decided to focus on things I could do something about. Go for a string of minor victories instead the big all-or-nothing enchilada.”

“And it worked?”

She took a thoughtful bite of her croissant. “Hard to know, but it’s what happened.”

“Maybe when you become friends with the age of thirty, you discover there’s more than one way to find out who you are and to get what you want.”

He took a slug of black Jamaican coffee. “For me the greatest goal is to be able to do what you want. I think that’s what moves you toward inner peace, if there is such a thing.”

“I’ll go along with that,” she nodded.

“I gather you’re doing exactly what you want to,” he continued. “At least with your research. So you must...”

“Alex, you do remember what happened last night, right?” she blurted, finally acknowledging the enormous elephant in the room. “What are we getting into?”

“I hope it wasn’t just the vin rouge.” He said it like he meant it, which he did.

“I’m afraid it wasn’t very civilized of us, was it? Oughtn’t we to’ve waited a decent interval? Third date or something?” She wrinkled her brow, but only slightly. “Isn’t that the rule?”

“Sometimes I think always doing what you ought to do is overrated.” He took another sip from his cup.

“I guess we proved that.” She said it with a wry twist.

“Well, convince me I’m not a one-night stand. What do you say to dinner tonight? Truth-telling for us both. How about this? There’s a cozy little joint down by the docks known as the Blue Moon. Local hangout. How would sevenish grab you? Though I have no earthly idea what I’m in for today.”

“I’ll try to be there,” she said, feeling buoyed by having something to look forward to. “Unless something horrible comes up. I don’t know where –”

“I hope I’m not just a backup in case something better doesn’t materialize.”

“Alex, so far you’re the only decent thing that’s happened since I got here.”

“Then I’ll be optimistic,” he smiled, “and consider a ‘maybe’ date progress.”

“Well, I’ll probably be up at the lab all day. How about you?”

“I’ll start off with a little breakfast of crow,” he said, making a face. “I’ve got to inform Joost Vlet what a screw-up I was with the donkey. Then I want to take another gander at the frozen carcass in the meat locker, maybe try a little forensics to come up with an educated guess about what I’m up against.”

“Are you going to try another donkey lure?” She was hungrily polishing off her omelet.

“I need to think like the creature, which is hard when you don’t know what it is. But this thing is wily and undoubtedly knows the donkey didn’t tether itself there. But it also might figure I can be outsmarted, again. Normally, though, it’s best to let things cool off. Let the creature wonder for a day or two. My bet is still on a Big Cat, somebody’s illegal pet that got loose.”

“Good. If you get bored, come up to the lab and I’ll show you around.”

That oughta really freak Harley, she smiled to herself.

*****

As she made her way up the coastal road toward the Rincon lab, she was trying to figure out what Harley’s game was. He clearly didn’t want to come clean about exactly what he’d done to the particular DNA strands he’d altered. He doubtless felt he had a personal proprietary right to the work and naturally, he didn’t want to share it. It was obvious he was convinced he was onto something big. Right now, it sure looked like he was.

So, she had to figure out what had happened all by herself using the database in the Gene-Tech supercomputer. It was daunting and annoying.

When she arrived, she headed straight for Harley’s lab. When she buzzed herself in, he was already there and looking even more haggard than he had the afternoon before.

“I’ve put together the tissue samples you asked for,” he announced coldly, foregoing any social niceties, which suited her just fine. “The data base identifies the individual players and the DNA strands we modified. They all enhance performance. Look it over. I just need to figure out which strand splices to back off. Prove you’re the hotshot Lamar Nolan thinks you are. Look this over and tell me what’s affecting temperament. I’m going out to the soccer field now to take data with Rachel and Tim.”

“You’re not even going to be around?” It’s already begun, she thought angrily. I’m being isolated and stonewalled by the bastard even before I start.

“Hey, you don’t need me for this. I don’t want to ‘prejudice’ your findings. So have fun.” The hostility in his tone seemed to be growing by the minute. “Then you can report back to Lamar. That’s why you’re here, right?”

“Well Harley, I certainly don’t need you now.” She was actually relieved to see him go. Good riddance. She didn’t need his threatening personality. “But when you get back you may have some explaining to do.”

“Whatever.” He shrugged nonchalantly.

“By the way, when am I going to get to see Tim and Rachel?” It was starting to seriously bug her.

“You just missed them yesterday. They had to go into town.” His eyes grew evasive. “And today they’re going to be at the workout all day, taking data. But they’re both asking about you.”

With that he wheeled and was out the door and down the bustling hall and gone.

Okay, she thought with anticipation, open sesame, here I come. She took the players’ tissue samples and commandeered the main lab. She would first liquefy and purify the cell samples, and then she would use a lab machine to amplify the DNA strands Harley had identified as being modified. Next, she would scan the output to create images, which could then be analyzed for abnormalities by the lab’s supercomputer.

She got going and two hours later, a disturbing pattern was emerging. The lab’s supercomputer was kicking back more and more abnormalities that it couldn’t categorize. In addition, the DNA strands that govern IGF-1 production, the protein that creates natural steroid effects, had not been altered. So, that theory was out the window. But nothing else clicked. She also couldn’t find any of his altered DNA in her personal genetic database, that she had on several DVDs she’d brought along. Something weird was going on and she felt very frustrated.

Harley, what are you up to? I’m not going to let you lick me. Time to bring on the heavy guns.

She got on the high-speed data connection to her lab at Downtown Manhattan and had her assistant Deirdre patch her through to a massive database she helped compile when she was still at Penn. She then arranged for the analysis to be sent back to her computer there at the lab in Bonaire and burned onto a DVD as a backup. It would take a few hours.

Next, she tried to get into the data files on Harley’s own lab computer. Go to the source and see what he claims is going on.

Surprise, surprise, they were encrypted. Shit.

Okay, she thought, if you want to play that game, I’m in. She copied the encrypted files onto a DVD and put it into a drawer, unmarked. If he wouldn’t give her access, she’d just take the DVD back to the hotel and crack the encryption later tonight on her powerful laptop. She was long familiar with his tricks. In fact, most of them she’d taught him.

The time was just after 2:30 PM when he suddenly came charging back into the main lab, shaken and ranting.

“Dammit, Charlie, Cap is losing control of the players. They’re getting more and more vicious. Since you’re supposedly here to help, have you come up with anything so far that we could get started on?”

“Harley, what off-the-wall thing have you done? You’d better start talking to me. I don’t know what you did, but there are genetic sequences here that don’t match anything in the Gene-Tech database. I’m going to have to shoot these data up to the lab at Penn to try to ID these splices. They’ve got a master database.” She wisely didn’t let on that she already had.

“That’s out of the damned question,” he fumed. “This is my proprietary clinical data. What I’m doing has never been done before. Nobody sees this till I’m ready. It’s just that something went slightly off the rails somewhere along the line, that’s all. Right now, we’ve got to just do a little reverse gene splicing with natural wild DNA, methodically and systematically, till we squelch whatever’s eliciting this aberrant behavior. Then we’ll know what to avoid in future work. The thing is, we want to keep the enhanced performance—you saw what they can do. So we’ve got to not screw around—again, forget Penn—and just do it.”

“You know, Harley, this funny DNA work is not the only thing that’s strange around here. You’ve gotten a little weird, yourself. What’s going on? Are you starting to get cabin fever or something?”

“What do you mean?” He glared at her.

“Social skills were never your strong suit, but now . . . you’re almost as hostile as those players I watched you test yesterday. Maybe you’d like to explain that.”

“Look out who you’re calling hostile.” He was glaring, his eyes twitching.

“Jesus, will you listen to yourself. Harley, you’re losing it. What is going on?”

“Okay,” he conceded finally, “I did a little early testing on myself, just to validate the concept. Just a ‘lite’ version, and it’s no big deal.”

No big deal? She wasn’t so sure of that. Something was coming unwired inside his head. He was distracted, hostile, and paranoid. She wondered if she should be worried about what he might do if she made him really angry.

“Then maybe we should add you to the data base. You know, give me some of your tissue samples for testing.”

“Don’t be a smartass,” he snapped.

“Well,” she said, “what would really be helpful would be for you to give me access to your encrypted data files.”

“Were you snooping into my files!” he exploded. “I knew I shouldn’t have left you alone here. You’re frigging spying for Lamar!”

“Look, I’m doing what I need to do, given the level of cooperation I’m not getting. How’m I supposed to help if I can’t even review your files?”

“Well, maybe we can work on a need-to-know basis,” he groused, finally, his tantrum abating slightly. “I’ll think about it. But no way am I just giving you walk-on access. That’ll happen the day after you give me all the files to your projects.”

“Point taken,” she said in a half-hearted attempt to defuse his irritation. He was beginning to seriously frighten her.

“I’m glad we understand each other,” he said, turning to leave. “I’ve got to go down to Kralendijk now and pick up some things. You just stay the hell out of my project files. There’s a good reason why I encrypted them. Then tomorrow morning we’ve got to start the reverse splicing.”

After he left, she worked another four hours trying every trick she knew to identify the splices. What was he doing? She still didn’t know. Maybe when the tissue data came back from Penn.

Clearly, Harley was right about the phenomenal success he’d had in enhancing muscle tone and reflexes and senses. However, something else was going on in the chemistry of their brain. Some compound was being released. Was it just good old adrenaline? Or something alien and sinister that had no business being there?

Then she suddenly remembered she had a “date” with Alex Archer and felt a wave of relief. She needed somebody to talk to.

Now, more importantly, he made her feel safe. From now on, she had to worry about Harley. There was every indication he’d get vicious if and when he found out she working behind his back. It was a scary thought.

Also, way in the back of her mind, something about everything she’d seen was trying to come together and she had the unnerving feeling she didn’t want it to.

DAY THREE: Bonaire

Chapter Eleven

August 8 Thursday, 7:47 PM

Kralendijk

The Blue Moon, half Tiki bar, half Arizona roadside lounge, was a small Dutch bistro down near the waterfront, an area that passed for civilization. Alex Archer had always loved the ambiance.

After a long day, he was shook by what he’d confronted. Nothing made any sense. He really needed a beer. He also needed to talk to Charlize, run the craziness by her. In truth, he also just wanted to see her again; maybe to convince himself she was real. The coincidence was just too much.

After waiting three quarters of an hour past the appointed time, he was regretfully concluding she’d stood him up. So, his fears were correct—this déjà vu was too improbable to be true after all.

Thus he was on his third Amstel (well, the bottles on Bonaire are very small) and feeling even more deflated than when he’d arrived, having received an earful that morning from Joost about screwing gringo nudists. On an irresponsibility scale of one to ten, Joost deemed it a twenty. Funny, though, Archer still didn’t regret it all that much.

Finally, just after eight, she came flying through the door, mumbling a perfunctory apology, her mind clearly elsewhere. She looked more than a little stressed.

But, God, he was thrilled, and relieved, to see her.

“Tough day?” He rose and kissed her on the forehead.

“You have no idea.” She exclaimed, clearly wound tight.

She collapsed into a chair and immediately ordered a mango margarita, frozen.

“Makes two of us,” he responded. “Care to share war stories?”

“Alex, I’ve seen things today, DNA modifications, that are completely off the wall.” She took a long chomp out of her instantly produced margarita, the way he remembered she used to quaff when she was deeply upset. “But I can’t even describe it yet. Because I have no idea exactly what I’m seeing. I shot some of the tissue data up to Penn, to run by their data base.” Then she remembered herself and looked slightly contrite. “Sorry to be so . . . how’d it go with your police chief friend. That was kind of all my fault for disrupting things up at the beach last evening and I’m really, really sorry.”

“Never apologize for anything if your heart is pure.” He pulled on his Amstel. “Fact is, I had a pretty strange day too. Same deal. I don’t know what I’m seeing. After I got a piece of Joost’s mind, I slunk back over to the locker and did a real number on that frozen donkey he had. Lots of measuring on the teeth marks. I’m pretty good at reconstructing teeth, but I truly cannot determine what this thing could be. There’s actually only one possibility that matches the measurements and incisions, and that makes no sense whatsoever. It’s literally impossible.”

“What . . . what do you mean?” She froze, her face dim in the pastel lanterns, as though she was reading his mind and couldn’t deal with what she saw.

“Charlie, those teeth marks . . . they could only be human,” he said slowly. “But that’s crazy. Humans don’t have that kind of strength in their jaws. It’s not remotely poss...”

“Alex.” She was staring at him, her mind obviously clicking away. “I’ve been looking at an illegal clinical trial that...”

“You see,” he distractedly interrupted, “the problem with that theory is that no humans ever, not even Neanderthals, had the kind of raw muscle power required to do that kind of damage. I seriously doubt that even a fully-grown male gorilla could do it, not that they’d even want to try since they’re basically vegetarian. This thing, whatever it is, is some carnivore. It literally ripped that donkey apart with its teeth. With no evidence of serious canines. So it wasn’t a Big Cat.”

She had grown nervously quiet, now just staring at her finished mango drink.

“Tell me something,” she said finally, anxiety flooding her voice. “When did these attacks begin?”

“Well, Chief Joost says the stories started a few weeks back. But up until he saw that carcass, I gather he figured they were just rumors and didn’t pay much attention.”

“And this . . . whatever is going on . . . only happens at night?”

“Seems to be the case. But that’s not surp...“

“My God,” she blurted out a whisper, “what has he done?”

Archer could barely hear her. The color had drained from her face. “What . . . what has who done?”

“Alex, you said the teeth marks were human, but that was impossible. But what if it’s not impossible? You don’t know what I saw yesterday. I saw guys with superhuman strength, practically able to leap tall buildings. Maybe Harley’s real ‘side effect’ glitch is not just paranoid hostility; maybe it’s to turn them into bloodthirsty nocturnal predators.” She shook her head. “Jesus, this is too insane to even think about.”

“You saw—?”

“Something must come over them at night.” Now she was just talking to herself. “And Harley’s been experimenting on himself too. My God, that thing out there killing donkeys could even be Harley, though I doubt he has the strength the others have.”

Then she seemed to remember he was there and snapped back. “Alex, you’ve figured it out. The killer or killers are human. They’re the subjects of Harley’s clinical trial. He’s created them. One of the players I talked to yesterday said he’s started having memory lapses about what happens at night. They don’t know they’re doing it. They don’t recall anything.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” He felt way behind her curve.

“We’re about to be in this together, so you might as well know. Harley’s doing DNA modifications on the New York Wolverines. Unfortunately, it’s a Gene-Tech contract with the owner. I think he’s trying to come up with what amounts to undetectable doping; and I have to tell you, it’s working. Their physical performance is beyond anything you’ve ever seen in an athlete. The problem is the side effects. Which apparently include dead donkeys.”

“Glad you finally got around to letting me in on what’s going on.” He didn’t like the sound of any of this. “Last night I might have shot somebody in the dark.”

“Alex, last night I didn’t know.” Her voice was traumatized. “And honestly we’re still just guessing.”

“You’re saying this was all dreamed up by your ex, the brilliant Harley Ryan? So, I was right about him all along. He’s a sick, self-serving genius. But if it’s his problem, then why –?”

“I got commandeered by the CEO of Gene-Tech, my boss, to come down here to try and figure out what to do. To reverse Harley’s ‘side effects.’ Supposedly just some personality tantrums or some such. Now I realize that’s just a minor part of it. Harley’s clearly living in denial about this nocturnal behavior. Maybe, God help us, he doesn’t even know. So I’ve got to get into his data file, whether he likes it or not, immediately. He knows what he did, but he thinks it’s going to make him rich and he won’t tell me. I made a copy this afternoon, but it’s encrypted, so . . .” She paused. “Shit, I left it at the lab.”

“Is there anybody else who would know what –?”

“Got to find Timmy,” she blurted. “I think Harley’s keeping him away from me. Maybe he’ll tell me what the hell’s going on.” She glanced at her watch. “I sent a big data file of tissue DNA to Penn today, where I can still use their genome database. By now maybe they’ve —”

She took out her cell phone and called her lab techie at Penn.

“Dr. Russell, I’ve run the tissue data you sent me and ID’d some of the splices and sent it back to your laptop.”

“So what did you find out?”

“It doesn’t make any sense.” His voice was puzzled, and leery. “It’s like the data were taken from contaminated samples or there was a mix-up or something,”

“How?” she asked. “What do you mean?

“You’ll see,” he said. “Somebody was really being sloppy.”

He clicked off.

She was getting up, determination in her eyes. “Come on Alex, I want you with me. We’ve got to go back up to the lab right now. Tonight. You just made the team.”

He was heartened by the sound of that.

“Hey, I don’t come cheap.” He smiled. “My ride or yours?”

“Yes you do come cheap. You’re back and I’ve got you. Your car is fine.”

“You know,” he said, “cruising around up there in the north at night is starting to look kinda risky. After donkeys, people could be next. Are you sure this can’t wait?”

“I’m about to find out what the hell Harley did. Let’s go.”

They had the Blue Moon wrap a couple of ham sandwiches and then got into his gray Toyota and headed up the shore, past the cliffs leading to the lab. Tonight, however, unlike last night, the moon was blanked by heavy clouds.

“I’m still a little puzzled how this DNA stuff works,” he said as they drove. “I thought altered DNA only worked in the next generation. Using eggs.”

“Not true,” she said. “What Harley’s doing is actually a rip-off of my own DNA work. Let me give you an example. I know now this is not what he’s doing, but as a starting point, think about this.

“We’re all supposed to make a protein that promotes muscle growth and repair in our bodies. For lack of a better name, we call it ‘insulin-like growth factor-1’ or IGF-1 for shorthand. But some people’s genes don’t let them make enough of it and thus their muscles atrophy. Muscular dystrophy. But we now can do ‘gene therapy,’ repair a person’s existing DNA and then insert that corrected DNA back into muscle cells using a neutered virus. The new DNA causes the production of IGF-1. My preliminary results show the procedure can have a real impact on muscular dystrophy, even possibly reverse it.”

“I’m with you so far,” he said, gamely, “but how –?”

“Well, think about what could happen if you altered a healthy person’s DNA and produced excess IGF-1? I did some experiments on mice and it was as though I’d given them huge doses of steroids. They became over-muscled monsters, but the reason was completely undetectable in conventional blood tests.”

“And you think that’s what he’s doing? Giving them something that works like steroids, but so nobody can find out?”

“Naturally that’s what I assumed at first. The obvious answer. And it could have explained the hostility, since anabolic steroids can sometimes make athletes more aggressive, the so-called ‘roid rage.’ But today I did an analysis of their DNA in tissue samples and realized whatever he’s done is far from being that simple. He’s altered some of their DNA, but I still don’t know what.”

“Well, I want to see these guys in the flesh,” he declared. “I still can’t believe any human could have done what I’ve seen, though there are the tooth marks . . ..”

“We’re not going anywhere near them at night. Let’s keep this fact-finding to daylight hours. I just want to grab that copy I made of Harley’s records and bring it back to the hotel and see if I can crack the encryption on my laptop.”

“You’ve got it.”

He was focusing on the road, alert for anything that might appear uninvited. It was hard to remember that he’d planned to be in St. Thomas by now, after a shakedown cruise of the Occam’s Razor. If the wind kicked up to 25 knots or so, as it frequently did over the blue waters to the north, a broad reach would clock you well over a hundred miles a day, easy. It would be a fantasy sail.

But right now he was running some real-life fantasies about Dr. Charlize Russell. She looked terrific and she had even more of the mental edge he’d always admired in her. He definitely had no misgivings about not having gone the Med School route, but seeing her again reminded him it was nice to be around a real medical player. Unlike a stockbroker or a novelist, people like her were in a position to actually do something useful for the world.

More than that, he had a nose for trouble and he had a definite sense she was about to be in a considerable amount of same. Somebody was trying to game her and when they came to the realization that it wasn’t working, things were sure to get ugly. He felt an obligation to stick around till they both figured out what was going on, and then—

“Watch out!” Charlie yelled as a herd of six feral donkeys dashed across the road, right across the headlights.

“Shit!” He swerved and just nicked the tail of the last one. “Ouch, that was close.”

“Alex, you’re an animal behaviorist, right.” Her voice was strangely subdued. “So what did that sighting just now tell you?”

“The same thing it told you,” he said slowly and reluctantly, almost with sorrow. “They weren’t galloping around in a fit of high spirits. They were fleeing. From something. They know they have suddenly become the hunted. Something is chasing them down and tearing them apart with its teeth. For the fun of it.”

“You know, I really want out of Bonaire. I’m starting to get scared.” Charlie interjected. I want to just go. But I’m afraid they won’t let me. From the moment I landed, I’ve been little better than a prisoner. They sent two goons to the airport to escort me up to the lab. Bet you anything I’m being watched. No way can I just blow town.”

“Well, actually there might be a way. But let’s see how it goes for the next day or so. I still want to see this . . . man or beast with my own eyes. So I’ll press the pace and try again tomorrow night.”

A few minutes later Charlie was directing him into the Gene-Tech parking area for visitors. They’d made it in record time.

“Shit,” she said. “I’ve got a feeling Harley’s here. Call it an instinct.”

“Got a Plan B?”

“I barely have a plan A.” She opened the door and gingerly stepped out into the dark, abandoned lot.

DAY THREE: Bonaire

Chapter Twelve

August 8 Thursday, 9:15 PM

Gene-Tech Lab, Rincon

“He’s with me,” Charlie said.

Alex flashed an ID to the guard and left a signature in the visitor’s book. The two guards, who were packing, scrutinized him as though he were a serial killer but made no attempt to stop them. Apparently, even they’d heard that the famous Dr. Charlize Russell had come down to help Dr. Ryan, the big-shot senior researcher.

As they moved through the metal detector, she whispered, “Harley would freak if he knew I was bringing anybody here. He’s completely paranoid now.”

The hallway was dimly lit and attended only by a skeleton shift of guards, three locals playing poker on an upturned box down at the far end of the central hallway. There were card readers outside every door; territory was being guarded and protected. As befitted a lab doing research at the molecular level, everything was spotless.

“By the way,” Charlize said, heading around a corner, “I don’t think I mentioned the other two members of our ‘Gang of Four’. Rachel and Tim. They’re down here too, but for some reason Harley’s not making it easy for me to see them.”

“Got any theories about that?”

“How’s this? They know what’s going on and he’s afraid one of them, probably Tim, would break down and spill the beans.”

“Sounds like you ought to find them. How hard can that be?”

“I just haven’t had time. Besides, they surely know I’m here, but nobody has tracked me down to say hello. It’s not exactly like I feel so welcome. I guess I pissed them all off by opposing the sale of our company, Gene Solutions, to Gene-Tech. Maybe the hard feelings about that are still out there.”

“I can’t be entirely objective about Harley,” Alex said, resenting how Ryan had replaced him with Charlize, “but if I were him and I thought I had some proprietary miracle working, I might be a little security conscious too. You say he’s turned a bunch of burned-out losers into Olympic athletes. Even if he ripped off your work to do it, it sounds like he’s found the sports equivalent of the Holy Grail. He’d be stupid not to keep it as proprietary as possible.”

“That’s how I figured it too,” she snorted disdainfully. “And stupid he’s not.”

They stopped in front of a door and she whisked her card.

“Somebody’s home.” She nodded toward the shaft of light seeping out the bottom. “I hope it’s Timmy.”

She shoved open the door.

“My God,” came a voice, “it’s true. Charlie, hi. I’m so glad you’re here. Sorry I haven’t had a chance to catch you sooner.”

To Alex, the guy who looked up from the electron microscope display screen appeared thirtyish, with sandy hair and a boyish cast to his face. His eyes seemed trapped in a cycle of perpetual insecurity.

“Hi, Timmy. You been avoiding me?”

“God no. Not really. It’s just that . . . hey, you look great. What’s it been now? Almost a year, right?”

“Alex, this is Dr. Tim Collins. We used to be in business together.”

“Hi, Alex Archer.” He stepped forward and offered his hand, liking Tim already. “I’m sort of here by accident.”

“I think we’re all here by accident.” Tim took his hand with a puzzled look, like, how do you figure in all this?

“Timmy, what the hell’s going on?” she demanded impatiently. “What are Harley and Rachel up to?”

“I’m . . . I’m still trying to make sure my guess is right,” he said. “It’s too horrific to just say it.”

“So you think you know?” She was angry with him but trying to start nice.

“I need you to tell me if I’m crazy.” His voice was trembling slightly. “If it’s actually possible.”

“Okay, but first things first,” she said. “I need to pick up something, and then we have got to talk. Now.”

“Charlie, I’m not supposed to talk to anybody about what we’re doing, but I’m glad you’re here. We’ve got a horrific situation with the side effects. I begged Harley to get you down here.”

“Christ, Timmy, just these unethical offshore clinical trials by themselves are already horrific enough.” Then, “Don’t tell Harley but I sent his latest tissue data to Penn to try and ID some of the splices he did. I called them just now and they’ve finished and sent it back. It’s here. They said it’s weird.”

“God, he’s gonna be really pissed when he finds out.”

“Well, I’m already pissed. Timmy, point me in the right direction. Tell me what you think, even if it’s just a suspicion.”

“Not here. Rach could walk in on us. Where are you staying?” He glanced uncertainly at Alex. “We need to have a one-on-one about all this.”

“I’m downtown at the Plaza. I’m actually going back there now to do some work.” She was retrieving the DVD she’d burned of Harley’s encrypted data from the desk drawer. Then she started packing up her laptop with the downloaded Penn ID results. “Timmy, you’ve got to level with me. Is what Harley’s doing going to destroy us all when it gets out?”

“Look, when I finish here, I’ll come down to your hotel and we can talk.” He tried to smile. “God, it’s great to see you. I . . . I feel so alone down here sometimes. Harley and Rach have –”

The door to the lab burst open and a raven-haired woman charged through. She was dressed in black sweats and she was breathing hard.

“Harley was afraid you might be nosing around here tonight,” she hissed to Charlie, ignoring Tim and Alex. “You know, we really don’t need you meddling in our work, spying on us.”

“Hi, Rach, nice to see you too,” she said dryly. “Let me introduce Alex Archer. Alex, this is Dr. Rachel Wu.”

“Who the hell are you?” She glared at Alex. “And what are you doing here?”

“He came with me, Rach. He gave me a ride up.”

“Well, this is a restricted area, so get him the hell out of here. Now.”

“We were just leaving. But out of curiosity, what’s that you just said about ‘our’ work. According to Harley, what you’ve been doing is ripping off my work.”

“You’re not part of this project, Charlie. And you don’t own your research procedures. Gene-Tech does. Everything that’s been done here has been done by Harley and me. Tim is just a lab techie on this, along for the ride. Harley and I are the ones on the tightrope.”

“Rach,” Tim said awkwardly, “I never wanted to be part of this. So lighten...”

“Mutual happiness,” she declared with derision, then revolved back to Charlie. “You know, Harley is a lot better off with you out of the picture. And you’d better keep your skanky claws off him. Don’t get any ideas.”

“Yeah, I heard you two have become a ‘team.’”

“That’s right, and furthermore I don’t want you ever again in this lab unless either Harley or I are here too. This is our proprietary work and you’re not about to steal it.”

Tim had said nothing during this tirade, just watched uncomfortably.

Charlie deftly scored her DVD and laptop, then turned to Alex. “Come on, let’s get out of here.” When she glanced at Tim, he gave a slight nod, meant to be imperceptible. But Alex thought Rachel had caught it, sensed something was up.

“See you tomorrow, Rach,” Charlie chirped. “Say hi to Harley for me.”

And, shoving Alex ahead of her, she forcefully closed the door.

“You see the personal dynamics I’m facing,” she declared as they headed down the hall. “And by the way, did you notice how she picked up on that little ‘moment’ I had with Tim there at the end?”

“I got it. She has some kind of ‘sixth sense’. And I also caught the fact she had traces of mud on her running shoes. I didn’t see any puddles along the highway, so where’s she been running? Out in the bush? Somehow, it didn’t seem the moment to ask.”

“You know, I’d guess she’s doing whatever Harley’s doing, the lite version. Which means they could both be blacking out at night, like the players say they are. Then . . . God knows what.”

“Question,” he said. “Was there anything about her appearance that struck you as unusual? It seemed to me she had an almost male torso. Very muscular around the shoulders.”

“I guess maybe I didn’t check on Rach’s physique,” Charlie said. “I was too busy defending myself.”

“Well, she looked to me like one of those Eastern European female athletes who’ve been on steroids or male hormones or something. I think she could have taken everybody in the room, at once.”

“Rachel and I never cared for each other that much, but I’ve never seen her this hostile. I’m starting to wonder what violence she’s capable –”

The conversation stopped as they passed through lobby security on the way out. Once again the two armed guards scrutinized Alex with laser eyes.

When they reached the steps, the lot remained smothered in utter darkness by a heavy bank of clouds. Alex paused a moment and caught her arm.

“Charlie, do you hear what I hear?” His voice was just above a whisper and it was filled with undisguised alarm.

She paused, puzzled. “I don’t hear anything.”

“Exactly. That’s it. No crickets. Nothing. Something’s here. Walk fast but don’t run. Don’t appear to flee.”

He was unlocking the car doors with the remote, moving rapidly. “Come on. You were right when you said we should stick to daylight hours.”

“Alex, there’s nothing –“

“Get in. NOW,” he hissed in a stage whisper.

A second later, he hit the master control, power-locking all the doors. The darkness surrounded them, and not wanting to turn on an interior light, he fumbled with the keys till he found the one for the ignition.

“What –?”

“Don’t talk,” he whispered. “Something’s out there. It let us get in the car so we’d be trapped together. In here we’re sitting ducks and whatever’s out there knows that.”

In one motion he started the engine and slammed the automatic gearshift into reverse, turning the wheel. As he spun around, there was a shattering noise and glass from the rear window sprayed over them.

“Jesus!” Charlie ducked down in the seat. There was a bump against the right rear fender and then a dark form flashed by on the passenger side as he spun the car around again.

“We’re getting out of here with no lights,” he declared. “Whatever we just hit, we only grazed.”

“Can you see your way out of here in the dark?” she yelled, terrified.

“I’m working with sense memory,” he said, hoping to sound confident. “I know how I got in and I hope I know how I can get out.”

He shoved the gearshift into drive and gunned the engine. That’s when they both realized something was hanging on the back of the car, at one side.

“Jesus!” he muttered.

“I can’t see anything,” she yelled. “You’re going to get us killed.”

“We’re going to be ripped apart if we don’t . . . Now. This car’s a tin can. Make that a plastic can.”

He deliberately sideswiped another car with such force that whatever was hanging on the rear disappeared, emitting a low guttural sound. Then he peeled out the front gate. Only when they reached the roadway did he flick on the lights.

The thin line of asphalt stretched ahead of them, empty, and in moments, they had made it to the cliff leading down to the sea. The pounding of the surf was audible through the shattered rear window.

“Alex, something just tried to attack us,” she said, her voice still shaking. “I’m starting to feel extremely unwelcome here.”

“Yeah,” he said, peering into the dark. “It’s definitely growing unfriendly.”

“I don’t want to go back there. Ever again.”

“Your call. But isn’t somebody going to notice your absence eventually?”

“Right now I just want to get to the hotel and check out the Penn data analysis. Then I want to snoop through Harley’s project files. If I can crack his encryption. But I think I know his tricks.”

“And if you do succeed, then what?” He wasn’t sure where she was going.

“It depends on what I find out,” she said with a frustrated sigh. “Harley wants me to, one, help him take out some of the splicing he’s done and, two, then disappear. Right now all I know is there’s a lot of DNA in these guys that doesn’t correspond to anything in the Gene-Tech database. And without telling me what it is, he wants me to start removing it and replacing it with the original, ‘wild’ DNA that should be on those strands. Until this aggressive behavior subsides.”

“Do you think you can do it?”

“To answer that, I need to know a heck of a lot more about what he did than I know now.”

“But what do you think he might have done?”

“I don’t want to ‘think.’ I want to crack his data files and find out exactly.”

As the headlights cut through the inky darkness along the coastal road, Charlize cracked a window and leaned her head out. So far, they hadn’t seen any fleeing donkeys.

“Tell me about Tim,” Alex said. “Seems like he’s struggling with something on his conscience. Could that mean he thinks they’ve all done something beyond the pale and now it’s consequence time?”

“What I’m wondering is whether he knows yet about the nighttime side effects, such as what just went on in the parking lot? I’d guess no, because I think that what just happened has never happened before. Something tells me that thing back there was after me.”

“Tim said he’d contact you at the hotel, right? Think he’ll really do it?”

“I honestly don’t know,” she sighed. “I think Harley and Rachel have got him pretty intimidated. I have a cell phone number for him buried in my laptop, but it’s two years old and I don’t know if it will even work down here. I’d call him at the lab number but that would just freak him out. But if he does call, I’ve got to cancel the meeting and warn him not to leave the lab till daylight.”

“That means you won’t learn what he knows till tomorrow at the earliest.”

“I can’t ask him to go out to the parking lot when . . .” Her voice had acquired a slight quiver. “God, did you see anything back there? I was trying to avoid flying glass.”

“I didn’t do much better. Some dark form whisked by the window. Could have been more than one for all I know.”

“Alex, talk to me. You don’t miss anything.”

“Okay, it was human. And it had no fear.”

“Do you think it was Harley?”

“Next time you see him, maybe you can ask.”

“Very funny.” She exhaled deeply. “Well, hopefully Timmy can help. We just have to hope he calls. Assuming he’s still alive.”

Then her cell phone rang.

DAY THREE: Bonaire

Chapter Thirteen

August 8 Thursday, 10:43 PM

The coastal road south to Kralendijk

“Timmy, where are you?” Charlize was shouting over the whistle of wind.

Then, frantically, “Stay there! Whatever you do, don’t leave the lab till daylight. And thank goodness you kept my old cell number. Call me if anything –”

During the agonizing pause that followed, Alex was watching the approaching lights of Kralendijk just ahead. The steep cliffs of the coastal road had given way to beachfront development and dive shops. In ten minutes, fifteen at most, they would be safely back to the hotel. . . .

“Timmy, I mean it. There’s stuff going on that you don’t know about.” Another pause. “Jesus, you’re not listening. A few minutes ago, something in the parking lot tried to . . . I can’t go into it over the phone. I’ll come back up there in the morning and then maybe we can sneak out for a picnic brunch down by the cliffs. But don’t move tonight. This . . . whatever it is . . . only comes out –”

A pause.

“Timmy, for God’s sake, I’m serious.” Her voice was almost cracking. “I know there’s not a lot of time, but you’ve got to listen to me on this. Don’t go outside till it’s light. Be afraid of the dark.”

Another pause.

“Timmy, just tell me something now. Since if you won’t listen to me, I might never see you again. Do you know where Harley got the DNA he used? Because it’s not in the open database. He’s stonewalling me and… well, you saw Rachel.”

Alex noticed that she wasn’t saying anything about the DVD she’d loaded Harley’s encrypted study data onto.

Then, “All right, no phones. I’ll wait to talk. I’m at the Plaza, but not tonight. Wait till morning. Come for breakfast. Don’t go out . . . God no, she’s the last person you should . . . she’s not in danger. You don’t understand. She’s—”

A few seconds, and then, “Don’t . . .” She paused. “Shit, he hung up.”

“He’s still coming down to the hotel tonight?” Alex felt worried at the mere thought.

“I don’t know what he’s going to do. He doesn’t function very rationally under stress.” She hesitated, painfully. “You know, Alex, I . . . I think we ought to go back up there right now. I know it’s crazy, but he may need –”

“That’s a truly terrible idea but hang on.” He did a power u-turn on the empty road and hit the gas. The world outside the car did a crazy 180. “In for a penny . . .”

“God, you’re reminding me of how we got along so well together,” she declared with a smile. “But that was in another life.”

The wind whipped through the shattered back window as they sped north up the empty highway, retracing the route they’d just come.

“This is a heck of a reunion. Two days ago I thought my biggest challenge was to sail a 38-footer back to Jersey City in the teeth of hurricane season.”

Now, he thought, here he was driving around in a rental cracker box with no rear window on a deserted road on an island where something had just tried to attack them. Even worse, he wasn’t sure what the next move was supposed to be.

“Hey,” he said, his brain finally starting to function, “does that cell phone have a call-back feature?”

“Of course!” she exclaimed. She hit it and after four rings, there was an eruption of static and a voice yelling, “Yes.”

“Timmy, where are you?”

“Charlie, is that you?” he yelled. Alex could hear him all the way over on the other side of the car.

“Yes. Where –?”

“I can’t talk now.”

“Please STAY WHERE YOU ARE. We’re coming back to –“

I’m on . . . it’s just that . . .Jesus!”

“Timmy, LISTEN to me, for God’s sake.”

“Charlie, they’re . . . NO!”

There was a long scream and then a shattering sound, like metal crunching, after which the phone went dead. Not a dial tone, just nothing.

“Maybe you should try redial,” Alex suggested sadly, “just as a long shot.”

She did, but only got a busy signal. “Shit.”

“The break-up pattern sounded like he was moving,” Alex ventured. “So maybe he got out of the parking lot and was trying to get on this road headed south.”

“But that sure sounded like a crash. Jesus. We have to find him. Maybe the whole thing was just the phone . . .” Her voice trailed off into despair

Alex decided not to voice his doubts.

He was going as fast as the turns would allow, but he was checking out the roadside with great care. He normally would have been worried about stray donkeys wandering across the road but now that concern seemed so small potatoes. He was more worried about what else was out there.

“This is all such a nightmare,” Charlie declared. “Like you, two days ago my problems were minor. All I had to worry about was being smeared by garden variety demagogues. Now I have to worry about people being killed, including me.”

“You know,” he said thoughtfully, “when something tries to tear me apart, I generally take that as a hint to move on. What happened in the parking lot was aimed at us. I really think the sooner we get out of here, the better. If we can get Tim, tonight doesn’t strike me as too soon. I no longer care about seeing what’s out there. What do you think?”

There was a long pause, then, “Alex, you’re going to wonder if I’m crazy for what I’m about to say, but I believe Harley may have done something very, very significant. Perverse, but also groundbreaking. When I get over being terrified and pissed off and disgusted, I’m determined to find out what it is, assuming I live that long.”

“Well, you’ve got that project disk with his encrypted data, right? And you have some kind of tissue DNA analysis from Penn. Maybe that’s all you need.”

“That’s certainly my hope; but I also need to talk with him, regardless. My research has shown that you can affect muscle characteristics by introducing modified DNA using viruses. But he’s done something that appears to alter the brain. That’s major, no matter what else he’s done. The medical possibilities are staggering.” She paused, and then her voice quivered. “Get real, girl. Don’t be a nerdy idiot. Just get your ass the hell out of here.”

It’s more than the science, Alex thought with chagrin. At some level, she’s still intrigued by the bastard. She just can’t admit it to herself.

The night was sliding by them. The pounding of the surf felt amplified by the darkness.

Then as they turned onto the road leading inland toward the lab he abruptly screeched to a halt.

“Aren’t those tire marks back there the pavement? Like somebody was burning rubber?”

He wheeled around and drove back.

“My God,” Charlize said, “look at the railing over there. At the edge of the cliff. It wasn’t like that before.”

“I’m going to get out and have a look,” he declared. “You move over here in the driver’s seat and keep the motor running. Be prepared to run over anything that moves.”

The sky had cleared enough that the moon was peeking through. Enough to see, but also be seen. He walked past the demolished railing, which had been bent outward by something moving at high speed. But when he got to the edge and looked down, the ocean was a hundred feet below and empty.

He walked briskly back to the car and got in the passenger side.

“Whatever it was sank.”

“Alex, Timmy is cautious to a fault. He would never have this kind of accident. Somebody . . . Oh God,” she wailed. “Poor Timmy.”

“We don’t know anything yet.” He was trying to be soothing, but also realistic. “Keep hope alive. Let’s go on back to the lab and see if maybe he’s still there.”

“Alex, are we safe?” she asked, staring into the moonlight around them. “This place is utterly desolate.”

“We’re okay. I saw a rabbit. If you listen, you can hear crickets. The things that live here are not worried. Business as usual. I’d say the excitement is over for tonight.”

When she drove into the Gene-Tech parking lot, it was quiet and deserted. The moonlight showed that whatever had attacked them was long gone. Still, she parked as close to the entrance as she could and then they power-walked to the lobby. As they went through the front doors, they met Rachel coming out.

“I thought I told you to leave.” She glared at Charlie. She was still wearing sweats and sneakers but she had combed her hair. “You have no –”

“Oh, Rach, sit on it,” she spat back. “Where’s Timmy? Is he still here?”

“That shit. He sneaked out. I didn’t see him leave. But if you think he’s going to help you steal...”

“Jesus,” Alex said, “I need to make a call to the home of the Bonaire Chief of Police; and I’d prefer not to do it on a cell phone. Any problem with me using that land line there on the guard’s desk?” He headed over.

“Why are you calling the cops?” Rachel was still glaring.

“You know, Rach,” Charlie interjected angrily, “I have a funny feeling you might be able to figure that out if you just thought a little.”

After five rings, Joost Vlet picked up.

“Joost, you were afraid it would get worse and it just did.”

He explained they had strong reasons to believe that a car had missed a turn on the coastal highway and gone into the ocean. He told Joost where.

“And I think it’s somehow connected to that other problem. In fact, I think there’s a whole new set of target donkeys. Two legged ones. And guess who’s on the new list.”

Rachel was listening with interest. Charlie wondered if she was cutting through Alex’s code?

“All right,” he went on, urgency in his voice. “See you in twenty minutes, and bring a couple of things. Whatever spotlight you happen to possess, and a serious firearm.”

Charlie was by him when he hung up.

“Alex, let’s get back over there.” A line of tears was streaming down her face. “Maybe he’s alive and waiting to be rescued.”

DAY FOUR: Bonaire

Chapter Fourteen

August 9 Friday, 7:12 AM

Gene-Tech lab at Rincon,

Harley Ryan’s office

The phone was jangling when Harley opened his eyes and groggily slapped at it. He was at his desk, bent over, asleep on the computer keyboard.

The irritating intrusion continued.

He felt a surge of anger and was going to rip it out just before he noticed the caller ID flashing. The name rang a bell, though he couldn’t quite place it.

He struggled to sit up. There was mud on his hands, between his fingers. He looked around puzzled. How did that happen? He couldn’t recall anything since sunset.

The phone was still going.

Damn it!

His vision was clearing and he reached to pick it up.

“What?”

“Please hold for Mr. Nolan,” came a familiar sounding woman’s voice.

There was that name again. He wanted to take a bite out of the phone. Then he began to get a grip and remembered who and where he was.

This he didn’t need.

“Harley, what’s happening?” came an exasperated voice in his ear. “I expect to be kept informed.”

“Everything’s fine.” It was all he could muster as he tried to regain possession of his brain.

“I understand Dr. Russell is there now,” Lamar Nolan said. “So has she had any luck figuring out what the problem is?”

Why was he asking about Charlie?

“We were here all night. She just left. Basically, I’m clearing up the problem without her. I’ll have an update for you in a couple of days.”

“I want it before –”

“Really not a good time to talk. I’m getting some data back now.”

He slammed down the handset, then yanked out the cord and flung the phone clattering against the wall.

Shit!

What is Charlie up to? Sooner or later she’ll figure out what’s going on—sooner if she sends that tissue data to Penn like she threatened, then she’ll go ballistic and God knows what she’ll do. Would she be so crazed that she’d blow the whistle and take down Gene-Tech?

Damn Lamar for sending her. . . .

There was a ferocious pounding outside his office. He sprang from his chair and confronted the locked steel door, ready to rip it off and attack the would-be intruders. Then he sensed—how he was not sure, maybe smell—that it was Bobby Rath and “Tiny” Bledsoe and Dutch Mathis. They were just outside.

He released the safety latch on the door and immediately it burst inward. Bledsoe grabbed him and flung him back against his desk. He hung onto the edge and felt his adrenalin surge. He also noticed that all three players were muddied and scratched, as he was.

“What the hell happened to us last night?” Dutch Mathis, the starting quarterback, demanded. His mood was murderous, his bloodshot eyes ablaze. “What did we do? Nobody can remember. I think we might have killed somebody. You’re the one we ought to kill, for what you’ve turned us into.”

Harley was having the same problem. He thought he’d been out jogging but maybe he’d dreamed that. He seemed to remember being very angry about something, though now he couldn’t remember what it was. Plus, he was bruised and scratched, muddied, with torn clothes. Fortunately, there were plenty of showers at the lab and he kept several changes of clothing there as well.

“I’m feeling really screwed up,” Mathis went on, plaintive but frustrated. Of them all, he was the intellectual, the brain behind the offense. “I’ve completely lost track of nights. I can’t remember anything that happens after it gets dark. Then I wake up in clothes that are ripped and bloody and I don’t know how they got that way. I mean, whose blood is it? It isn’t mine.”

“Look,” Harley declared, hoping to back them off, “I’m having a few memory issues myself. But trust me when I tell you I’m going to fix it. No big deal.”

“And that new woman doctor who just showed up hasn’t done shit,” Rath interjected. He was the downfield receiver and long distance runner of the ruling triad. “I thought she came down here just on purpose to fix this.”

“I don’t think she can be trusted,” Harley declared forcefully. “She’s just here to rip me off, and you.”

“I get the feeling you’ve been stonewalling her,” Rath went on. He didn’t have Dutch’s brains but he was no fool. “When Dr. Wu and Dr. Collins get here this morning, I’m gonna see about that.”

Yeah, we’re gonna damn well see about it, Harley thought.

“All right,” he said finally, “I’ve been working on an idea. Something I’d like to try.”

“Somebody had damned well better fix this,” Bledsoe declared. “I’m worried about what I may do nights when we go back to New York. Am I going to turn on my wife some night during one of these memory blackouts and rip her apart? If she bugs me any more about getting her a new Lexus, I don’t know what I might do.”

“Damned right,” Rath growled. “Down here is like some other place. But what’s going to happen when we go back into the real world?”

“I told you I’ve got an idea,” Harley said, feeling increasingly annoyed and stressed, “but I’m not sure it’s ready.”

“We’re out of time.” Mathis was gritting his teeth. “Ready or not, you’ve got to do something. So what are you thinking about?”

Harley knew better than to get into too many details with these guys. There was no way to describe what he was planning that wouldn’t sound incredibly risky.

“Look, I’ve got a new idea, maybe stop-gap but it could do the trick.” He was thinking about trying some injections into the carotid artery of the players, in the neck, as a way to work directly on the brain. “In simple terms I want to do some localized work to try to replace some of the altered DNA that currently may have seeped into your brain with original ‘wild’ DNA. I have a theory that we’ve accidentally stimulated some hormone that controls an aggression center somewhere. This shouldn’t affect any of your incredible performance enhancements. It should bypass it.”

“So how are you planning on doing this?” Bledsoe asked. He wasn’t the sharpest knife in the drawer, but even he had learned to be skeptical of any more of Harley’s bright ideas.

“Just some very tiny injections.”

“In my brain? You gotta be kid—“

“Of course not. They would be in the side of the neck.” Make it sound simple, he thought. That should sound less alarming than to specify the carotid artery. But it would allow the wild DNA to be pumped directly into the brain and concentrated.

Truthfully, he thought the chance this would have any effect was minimal but he was fresh out of ideas. To try to reverse everything would mean to lose the team’s hard-earned performance enhancement. Then all his work would have been for nothing.

Trouble was, he wasn’t at all sure anything could turn around what he and Rachel had done, even if he wanted to.

Should he be working with Charlie on this? Damn!

“Then I say let’s get started,” Rath announced. “How soon can you –?”

“I can do it right now,” Harley interjected. “You won’t even need anesthesia.”

Shit, he thought, I’ve got Lamar Nolan breathing down my neck and now these gorillas are turning on me. And Charlize is just here to spy and slow me down.

Charlie’s intrusion was last straw and the very thought of her made him seethe with rage. It was high time to get rid of the bitch.

He went to wash his hands.

DAY FOUR: Bonaire

Chapter Fifteen

August 9 Friday, 7:28 AM

Coast off Rincon

“The crew from Bonaire Dive Lodge just find a car,” Joost Vlet was slowly topping the cliff, puffing and demoralized, “in about thirty feet of water. It match the make and model of one rented in the name of a Timothy Collins. But nobody in it. They also say the door on the driver’s side ripped off. Maybe when the car hit the railing.”

The early sunrise was shimmering over the morning ocean crests in a moment of pristine beauty. But now it merely accentuated the specter of their shock.

“My God, poor Timmy,” Charlize gasped, slumping against Alex. “He was so young and full of optimism.”

“This is awful,” Rachel Wu concurred, her eyes growing increasingly sad, and alarmed.

Alex was mulling the change in Rachel. After the confrontation in the lab the previous night, she now appeared to have undergone a complete personality transformation. The sight of the disfigured and shattered railing seemed to shake her out of one reality and into another. Instead of nasty, she’d abruptly grown contrite. Almost as though she knew something he and Charlie didn’t and was suddenly blaming herself for whatever had happened.

“I don’t believe in offering up false hope,” Joost continued wearily after a moment of catching his breath, “but in situations like this you never know for sure what happened ’less a body turn up. Wouldn’t be the first time somebody fake a disappearance on Bonaire. We’re not exactly the Bermuda Triangle for U.S. tax dodgers, but we’ve had our share.”

“What’re you saying?” Charlie demanded. “Is there something you’re not telling us?”

“T’ing is,” he ventured slowly, “I don’ t’ink the car actually went over the railing. I t’ink the railing did its job, stopped it. Then somehow the car get pitched.”

“Christ,” Alex blurted, “are you saying somebody ‘pitched’ a couple of tons of steel? Over that crushed railing?”

“Then how else it get down there, mon? I don’ see no crane.”

Charlie examined the railing again. You know, he was right! It hadn’t actually been breached, just bent all to heck.

“Look,” she said, “what I know is, we were on the phone with him when something happened. He was scared to death and he wasn’t faking it.”

Alex was studying the ocean below. Probably Tim had been swept up the coast and out to sea with the current, which was getting pretty strong this far north.

But how did a door get ripped off? Maybe Joost was right. Maybe he wasn’t in the car when it took the dive. Maybe something else got to him first.

He turned to Joost. “How’re you planning on getting the car up?”

“I don’ remember saying I was,” he grinned. “Make good fish habitat.”

“Come on, amigo, this is a crime scene. This was no ‘accident’. You’re not any dumber than I am and we both know it.”

“Just kidding. There’s a barge with a big crane down south they use for loading salt. I could probably persuade them to come up here, grapple it and raise it. Get some of the dive shop pros to help hook it up. Then we can go over it up close and see what we come up with.”

“Charlie, there’s nothing more we can do here right now,” Alex said. “Let’s head back to the lab, see if anybody there knows anything.”

“All right,” she nodded, still trying to get her mind around the whole thing. “Rach, are you ready to go back now?”

“Somebody’s got to break the news to . . . to Harley,” Rachel said, as though the name had put her in a trance. “He’s going to have a mental meltdown. I don’t want to be the one to tell him.”

Charlie had a sneaking feeling that Harley already knew, because he probably had something to do with it. She figured Rachel told Harley that Tim was coming to see her to spill the beans and Harley—maybe helped by some of the players—intercepted him. Add murder to the list of “side effects.”

“Tough shit, Rach,” Charlize snapped. “You and he are running this fiasco as partners, because you claimed Tim wasn’t up to being your equal. So now I think it’s time to start taking some responsibility. I’m down here to try to mop up the medical angle of this mess. However, the interpersonal niceties, if that’s the word for it, are all yours.”

“I can’t tell you how horrible I feel right now.” Rachel’s dark eyes were brimming with sadness. “All right, I’ll do it. This whole project got away from him . . . us. But I still think it can be saved. You’ve got to try to understand him.”

“Rach,” Charlie snapped angrily, “I understand Harley as well or better than you ever will.”

“That’s where you’re wrong.” She said it more with sorrow than with defiance. “He’s –”

“He’s completely screwed up and just in it for himself,” Charlize declared. “That’s what he is.”

“It’s not just that. He’s . . . part of it now. He’s crossed over. I can tell. Only he doesn’t know.”

Charlize stared at her, puzzled.

“Part of what, Rach?”

“Let’s just say the person who most needs for you to reverse the side effects is Harley.”

“Well, that’s a problem, because I’m not getting killed for Lamar Nolan. So you two can...”

“If you don’t help us,” Rachel bristled, “you’ll be sorry you ever came to Bonaire and screwed us up.”

She turned on her heel and headed for her car.

They watched her peel out and speed away.

“What was that about,” Charlie squinted after her, still seething.

“I think you just saw a remorseful woman in extreme pain,” Alex mused. “You surely know her a heck of a lot better than I do. You tell me.”

“Know what I think? I think she and Harley were terrified that Timmy was going to spill the beans to me last night about what’s going on down here. They were going to let him know that wouldn’t be appreciated. But maybe he fought back and it got out of hand.”

“You think she was reading his mind?” Alex remembered he’d been bothered by that possibility at the time. It was still a scary prospect.

“Of course. Timmy could never fool anybody. God, I saw this coming and I was living in denial and let it happen.” Her voice was full of self-recrimination. “Somewhere deep down . . . but why wouldn’t he listen to me when I told him not to leave the lab last night?”

“Well, if it can happen to him . . . put it like this, the minute you start getting close, guess who else it can happen to.”

“I’m way ahead of you on that particular thought,” she said shakily.

She walked slowly back to the Toyota and slumped into the passenger seat, staring out at the sunlit sea and trying to collect her thoughts and emotions. Then she felt something under her hand and remembered her laptop. Up until now she’d let it completely escape her mind.

Then she had a chilling recollection.

The grad student at her old lab at Penn claimed there was something weird about Harley’s tissue data. What was he talking about? . . .

“Charlie,” Alex was coming over, “I’m not going to the lab just yet. The more I think about it, something about this ‘accident’ doesn’t smell right. I’m going to try to get Joost to help me do a backtrack on the road. Try to reverse engineer this thing.”

Three police cars were parked along the roadway. Joost Vlet was standing next to his, talking on the radio.

“Okay, so you can have it up here by three,” he was saying. “That be great, mon. I’ll set it up with the dive guys.” He clicked off.

“Joost, got a second?”

“Sure t’ing, mon. The barge and crane gonna be up here this afternoon. We get this t’ing up.”

“I need to ask you a favor. Let’s go back up the road toward the lab, the way he came, and see if we spot anything.”

“What you be t’inking, mon?”

“I’m thinking maybe this is not necessarily what it appears.”

“So you finally figure that out too. I knew you had suspicious mind.”

“Then what do you say we take a little ride? I don’t know what we’re looking for, but you never know till you try. Maybe we’ll stumble across something that could shed some light.”

“I tell the boys.”

“Charlie,” he said, turning back, “want to come along?”

“I’m not good at that kind of forensic stuff,” she distractedly waved him off, opening her computer. “I want to take a look at what I got back from Penn. I just remembered I had it.”

“Well then, I bequeath you what’s left of my Toyota. The keys are in the ignition.”

“Good luck,” she waved.

“Ditto.” He waved back. “Surely one of us is due for some.”

DAY FOUR: Bonaire

Chapter Sixteen

August 9 Friday, 8:29 AM

Gene-Tech lab at Rincon

“I don’t know what the time line is gonna look like on this,” Harley was nervously explaining as he finished the neck injections. “I guess the first test will be tonight.”

“Thing is,” Bledsoe’s growl was despondent, “how’m I supposed to know? I can’t remember anything that happens when it’s really dark.”

“Well, I guess if you can remember, then it’ll mean there’s some improvement.”

“Damn it, this is not funny,” Bobby Rath snarled. “And, hey, aren’t you going to give yourself an injection? Remember you’re always saying, we’re in this together.”

“I was just about –”

Rachel Wu burst through the lab door, her magnetic entry card still in her shaking hand and bellowed at him. “Harley, we have got to talk. Right now.”

“Hi, Rach, where’ve you been?” He turned to stare, annoyed. “Your cell’s been off. What...?”

“Harley, we can’t talk in here,” she declared determinedly. “Come on out to the parking lot.”

“Hey, simmer down,” he glared, growing more incensed by her tone, his own voice louder. “I’m in the middle...”

“Harley, God dammit, now.”

“Okay, okay.” He overtly signed an annoyed “women, whaddya gonna do?” to the players and moved toward her. “Hey, you haven’t seen Tim by any chance, have you? I think something’s wrong with his cell. Neither of you...”

“My God, you don’t remember, do you?” She was shoving and dragging him out the door and into the hallway, leaving the players standing to stare—make that glare.

“Guys, I’ll be right back,” he called over his shoulder, clearly infuriated by her disrespectful treatment in front of study subjects. It undermined his authority. “Just be a sec.”

She slammed the door. “Harley, it’s Tim.” Now her voice was quivering. “He’s missing and his car is down at the main highway, at the bottom of the cliff, in the ocean. It looks like he was in an accident last night. Or maybe it wasn’t an accident.”

“What!” He stared at her in confusion. “What are you talking about?”

She told him the details, at times batting back tears.

“And the door was ripped off?” He seemed disoriented at first, but then increasingly alarmed. “That sounds crazy.”

“That’s what the divers said.” She was leading him mutely past the security desk in the lobby. When they exited the front doors, she turned and angrily confronted him. “Are you telling me you don’t remember that I called you last night, just after Timmy left the lab? That’s such bull...”

“You called me?” He squinted at her questioningly. The morning sun glared down on them and seemed to be hurting his eyes.

“Jesus, you really don’t remember, do you?” She seemed close to a meltdown.

“Rach, get to the frigging point.”

“I called you last night and told you I thought Tim was going down to Kralendijk to talk to Charlie. You said that was a problem and you clicked off. Where were you?” The memory now was vivid, and painful.

“What time was it?” He was staring at her as though he was beginning to half believe her.

“I don’t know exactly. Around nine-thirty I guess.”

“And where did I say I was?”

“You didn’t. But I think you were with some of the guys. I could hear them whooping it up in the background.”

“You know evenings are getting blurry for me now. The same way it is for...”

“Harley, it’s a lot worse than that,” she interjected, not even trying to hide her dismay. “Your whole personality is changing. I think mine had started changing too, and that’s why I stopped.”

“Speak for yourself,” he bristled.

She exhaled in frustration, knowing he was in a state of deep denial. She had been too, until she saw where Tim’s car had crashed into the railing. Tim was a cautious driver, just as he was cautious in everything. He didn’t just absentmindedly drive over a cliff. No way. Was she now an unwitting accomplice to murder? The thought was like ice penetrating her heart.

“Look, the police chief here—with whom I’ve spent several engrossing hours this morning—says it looks like Tim probably was swept out to sea. But then he’s telling Charlie and that guy Alex—that ex of hers or God knows what, a tourist buddy of the cop’s—that the crash could have been staged to just make it look that way and cover up something else that happened to Tim. Like maybe he was, who knows, kidnapped or murdered or . . . whatever.”

“That’s ridiculous.” The tone betrayed growing concern, as yet unspoken.

“Remember that girl in Aruba? Missing Americans down here end up famous on CNN. Everybody who knew Timmy had better be able to prove where they were last night real quick. If we don’t find him alive and soon, that cop is going to be here before sundown with a court order to search the lab and start taking statements.” She was shaking as her paranoia grew. “Since we knew him, we’ll both be his first suspects and he’ll arrest first and ask questions later.”

“No way is anybody getting into this lab,” Harley declared defiantly. “Screw ’em. They don’t have the jurisdiction.”

“Harley, you’re going to have to do better than that. Denial isn’t going to hack it any longer. When it comes down to it, this is their...”

“Look, too bad about Timmy, but I’m in the middle of something now, a long shot to maybe fix –”

At that moment, a badly trashed Toyota sedan came screeching up beside them, a moment suffused with foreboding.

The weird thing was, Harley thought something about it seemed familiar.

DAY FOUR: Bonaire

Chapter Seventeen

August 9 Friday, 8:41 AM

Road Approaching Gene-Tech Lab

Charlize was gunning Alex’s Toyota into the lab parking lot, barely able to see. All the way the pocked asphalt road had been a blur in front of her. The scrub brush had drifted by unnoticed, like a chimera. She’d completely failed to notice Joost Vlet’s squad car parked by the side of the road about halfway in from the ocean.

She was hoping her deep breaths would forestall shock. How would he dare!

There was a simple reason why the DNA strands Harley had vectored into the players didn’t show up in the Penn human-genome database. THEY WEREN’T HUMAN.

Here on an old salt-producing slave island, hidden from the world, an unspeakable line had been crossed, a universal taboo broken, for the first time in medical history. The very thought made her shiver with revulsion.

Exactly what species Harley had taken DNA from—fish, fowl, or pachyderm—was still buried in the data somewhere, but he had definitely gone transgenic, cross-species DNA splicing. Harley’s infusions had been so skillfully (or clumsily) vectored that the human subjects had been . . . what? Dehumanized? This was one very good reason why “transgenic” was the biggest taboo in human gene research, the line you were never to cross.

After the moments of initial shock, the next realization hit her. He had to get the DNA from somewhere. Some veterinarian or animal lab must be providing non-human DNA. Blood, saliva, semen, something. Surely there had to be other people helping Harley’s secret research, wittingly or unwittingly. Who was involved, who knew?

Just letting herself think about it was horrifying. She felt like her life was flashing before her eyes. She was this close to a giant step toward a cure for muscular dystrophy and now . . . if word of what Harley had done ever got out, it would ruin Nolan Pharmaceuticals and her with it.

As the sere open plains flew by around her, she was hallucinating they were populated by nocturnal beings that had been regressed back to pre-human hunters. They drowned Tim. Or maybe they faked the whole accident and just ate him. Who would they go hunting for next? Or maybe they’d just start glowing in the dark.

Then she noticed Harley and Rachel arguing just outside the entrance.

Good.

She screeched to a stop and stormed out of the shattered Toyota clasping her laptop like it was the keys to Fort Knox.

“Harley, you have just done the stupidest thing I’ve ever seen in my life.” Her voice is just below a shout. “You’ve done horrible human damage with this ‘clinical trial’ of yours. And God knows what’s happened to Timmy. So to start you’d better tell me what you know about Tim and last night. In the next five damn seconds.”

“Harley,” Rachel said ruefully, “this is just for starters. Wait’ll the cops show up.”

He ignored her as he focused on Charlie, rising up in indignation at her accusations. “Sounds like you know more than I do.”

“Maybe the problem was, Tim knew too much. Information you two didn’t want shared with me.” Charlize paused catch her breath. “You know, Harley, this time you have really screwed up. In every way imaginable.”

“Are you saying I had something to do with this . . . whatever you think did or didn’t happen to Tim? You’ve got a lot of frigging nerve.” He was yelling, and there was something very menacing about his outburst. “I don’t answer to you,” he went on, snarling. “I’m the one who’s doing the incredible work.”

“Until you get sent to jail and Gene-Tech is sued out of existence. I know what you did, and now I want you to tell me precisely where you got the DNA you used for vectoring, because I’ve had it with your runaround.”

”Everything about what I did is proprietary.” He glared at her with hatred in his eyes. “You were supposed to be part of the solution, but now you just want to steal my results.”

“Harley, trust me when I tell you that’s the last thing I want to do. No, I intend to shut you down.”

“We’ll see about that,” he growled. “Right now I’m in the middle of an experimental procedure and I’ve got to get back inside. Let me know if Timmy shows up. If not, forget about him. He wasn’t that much help anyway.”

He turned on his heel and disappeared back through the security lobby. Charlize watched him, realizing he’d completely lost it. The next chance he got, she’d go the same way as Tim, disappear over a cliff.

Get Alex and get the hell—

“Charlie, I’m really so sorry about this,” Rachel declared, her eyes mournful. “He’s changed so much since we started this project.”

“Do you think he even knows or remembers what happened last night?”

She was painfully silent for a moment. “Let me just say this. Harley knew Tim left the building. At least he knew it at the time. All right, I called him and told him. But I believe him now when he says he doesn’t remember.”

Charlize stared at her. “You told Harley? Now why would you do that?”

“I’m . . . I’m not sure,” she stuttered. “I guess I wasn’t thinking.”

“Well, try thinking now.” She was in a hurry to get out of there. Rachel was in on it, of course. Next question. “He told me he had been doing some experiments on himself. Like he did on the players. So he probably blacks out at night, the same way they do, right?”

“I really think he does.” Her voice was despairing. “Except it only happens when he’s somewhere where it’s really dark.”

“Jesus, Rachel, I know he used non-human DNA, but where did he get it? Please tell me? What is it? What did he do to cause this?” She felt her frustration and shock growing once again.

“I . . . I can’t. It’s brilliant but it’s also horrific. None of the players know. Harley would kill me if I told anybody.”

“You mean maybe you’d have a nighttime ‘accident’ the way Tim did?” Charlize bore in on her. “Timmy knew, didn’t he? He had to.”

“Charlie, neither Harley or I told him, but I think he suspected. He saw where the shipments were coming from.”

“Shipments?” She exploded. “That’s what I wanted . . . so where did –?”

An alarm erupted from somewhere inside the building. One of the guards in the lobby drew his gun and charged down the hallway.

“That’s a Code One alert,” Rachel yelled, running for the front entrance. “Harley must be in trouble.”

Jesus, Charlize thought, this whole scene is a madhouse.

She followed Rachel, zipping through what was left of the abandoned security station.

The alarm was coming from the main lab, Section B. When she rounded the corner of the hallway, she saw Harley standing next to the steel door of his lab. Vicious yells and growls were emanating from inside. Then at that moment, the doorframe splintered open and the three players she met the day she arrived came piling out, snarling at Harley. They clearly were intending to tear him limb from limb. Harley backed against the opposite wall, hands clenched in a defensive crouch.

A guard was hovering nearby with a Taser but he clearly was afraid to use it. It was three to one. It was a one-shot deal and then they could turn on him. Rachel was hysterical and screaming at them to stop.

For a moment Charlie was so stunned she wasn’t sure what to do. Then she had a blinding insight. She’d just learned they had non-human DNA. Maybe some of that DNA was from creatures with a “pecking order.” So try being the alpha player. Assume authority.

She strode over to “Tiny” Bledsoe and grabbed him by the collar, as though she were disciplining a dog. To his amazement, she slipped a judo move behind his leg and slammed him against a wall as he toppled. Feigning overwhelming confidence, she ordered the other two to “STAND BACK,” demanding it with a drop-dead ring of command.

“Tiny” was disoriented as he looked up at her, startled.

“NO!” She barked, standing over him. Then she put her foot on his neck and slammed his skull against the wall. “You don’t belong here. STOP!”

He stared at her strangely and then she gave out a fierce, guttural punctuation, “STOP NOW.”

He cringed and made apologetic mumblings of defeat. The others had stopped and seemed in shock.

There was an eerie silence as all the waiting guards were poised for something to happen.

I’ve got to get out of here, she thought, terrified. Now! While I can.

“Harley,” she whirled on him, “you have reaped the whirlwind. I should have let them kill you.”

She turned and strode purposefully for the entrance.

Don’t show fear.

“Charlie, Charlie! Wait . . .”

It was Rachel, plaintive, struggling after her.

But she didn’t look back. Not once.

DAY FOUR: Bonaire

Chapter Eighteen

August 9 Friday, 7:43 AM

Coast off Rincon

The road leading in from the ocean to the Gene-Tech facility was thin asphalt paving scarcely wide enough for two vehicles to pass. There also were half-hearted ditches on either side, perhaps an optimistic deterrent to donkeys dashing out.

“You know, mon,” Joost declared as they sped along in the morning air, “we got nuttin’ but trouble since these people come here and build this lab. They not in a town, so they say nobody got jurisdiction over them. I hear stories they ignore building codes, you name it. I do know they never let nobody into the place. Not even me. Who knows what they do in there? Sometime down here I t’ink I’m back in Guatemala. Everybody specialize in bullshitting me.”

“Joost, before that turns out to include me, let me break some news to you that I think you ought to know. The ‘creature’ that’s attacking the donkeys is most likely a human, or a band of humans. Gene-Tech has been doing some kind of DNA modification and they’ve effectively put an entire football team on grow-it-yourself steroids or some DNA equivalent.”

There was a long pause, then he quietly said, “Now... I want you to be shittin’ me.”

“I wish I were. Last night one or more of them wished me ill and forcefully removed the back window of my rented Toyota so we could share a moment. I’m still working on how I’m going to explain that to the sweet little beady-eyed lady in the rental office.”

“Then you better go over this real slow, mon.”

Alex tried his best to bring Joost up to his own level of knowledge, which was still pretty sketchy in its own right.

“I gotta get these DNA weirdoes the hell off my island, mon,” he declared with uncharacteristic force. “Right away. They a clear and present danger.”

“It seems they only go out and hunt at night. Might be easier to just find some way to keep people in their houses after dark. Some kind of island curfew.”

“That’s a damn stupid idea, you know that. This is my island. Nobody tell me what to do.”

“Hey, don’t mince words.” Alex shrugged. “It’s the best I can manage after a very long night.”

“Sorry, mon. I’m a little tired too.” He suddenly hit the brakes. Up ahead was a set of wavy skid marks on the asphalt. They were common in Bonaire because drunk drivers frequently spotted a herd of donkeys on the highway and slammed on the brakes at the last minute, but these looked brand new. Also, they crossed both lanes and headed straight over to the deep ditch.

“Okay, mon, we got to check this one.” He sounded concerned. “That don’ look right.”

He pulled over to the side of the road and they got out. The sun was well up now on a thoroughly beautiful day. The countryside on either side of the road was a mixture of rugged divi-livi trees and scrub brush.

“What do you think, Joost? Somebody definitely hit the ditch. See all that disturbance over there?”

“Yeah, mon, but what happen then? Where the car?”

Alex looked down. Next to the tire tracks in the sandy loam there were footprints, some heavier on one side than the other. Confusion, dirt thrown up. It was signs of a struggle. Then he looked up.

“Joost, over there.” He was pointing.

“Oh, mon, who you t’ink done that?”

There it was, a car door from the left-hand, driver’s side. Shorn metal was all that remained where the hinges had been.

Alex felt a surge of adrenalin. No animal did that. No normal human did it. He instinctively scouted their perimeter.

“Joost, you can spike the underwater crime scene angle. Whatever happened, happened here. That was just the disposal site.”

“Mon, I don’ like the look of this. How often you find pieces of a car in two places?”

“Look for blood. Scraps of clothing. Something happened here after the door came off.”

“Hey, mon, forensics is not a big science on this island.”

“Then look for a body. That’s not overly scientific.” He was headed into the scrub brush, following a tangle of footprints.

But then the footprints disappeared. Shit.

“Joost, got any dogs in the department down there in Kralendijk?

“Mon, we jus’ watch Law & Order on cable. ‘Bout the only serious crime we got here is stealing fish bait.”

That was hardly the case. They both were well aware Bonaire had a big-time home security problem; but in a sense he was right in the larger picture. This was not Jamaica. The breaking and entering here was all very civilized.

“Then we’ve got to do it ourselves,” Alex said. “Something happened here. It looks like somebody was carried off into the bush.”

He moved away from the road for thirty yards, and then did a perimeter walk where the soil was loose. Suddenly he stopped and pointed down.

“Joost!”

“Yeah, mon?” He ambled over.

“Check it out. The trail. Let’s go.”

Joost was openly skeptical. “They no trail here, mon.”

“Trust me.” He pointed down. “Broken twigs, bent grass. It’s practically a blacktop highway.”

Joost studied the scene, his eyes slowly lighting up. “Dat’s what you do, right? You see t’ings nobody else suppose to?”

“Well, let’s find out how far we can get.”

The late-morning sun was boring in as Alex led the way through the head-high brush and occasional towering manchineel tree. Then, after a few hundred yards, Joost started seeing the same signs too. Now the soil was sandy and the footprints were there, plain as day.

“What do you think?” Alex asked. “Looks to me like it was just one guy. And he was carrying something very heavy to lay down these deep prints. Notice that ours are much shallower.”

“You know what I t’ink he be carrying.”

“Well, if it was what you think it was, then he was one strong son of a gun. It’s been a quarter of a mile and he shows no sign of slowing down.”

“You know, this is making me nervous,” Joost said, flipping open the flap on his holster.

“I think you don’t have to worry about anything during the daytime, Joost. Best I can tell, these creatures only hunt out here at night.” He had no proof of that, he realized uneasily, just circumstantial data. Patterns are only patterns until they’re broken.

“You don’t know that.” Joost had him pegged. “You’re just makin’ it up and hopin’ it be true. The brush and trees around here, we can’t see nothin’.”

“It’s like he deliberately brought his load to this grove of trees. And I’m losing the trail.”

Joost had stopped and had fallen uncharacteristically silent.

“A.A., you looking in the wrong place, mon,” he said, pointing up.

“My God.” Alex looked and felt a chill. He’d had a premonition of something like this happening but he’d wanted desperately to be wrong.

What was left of Tim Collins had been draped across two tree limbs. One of his legs hung at a crazy angle, suggesting it had been broken. He was tied to the perch with a length of rope. He was gagged and he was just staring down at them mutely. His eyes were open and he was blinking into the light, his pupils wildly dilated.

“Joost, move very slowly. He’s in deep shock.”

“My God, we got to get some first aid out here.”

A second later he was on his walkie-talkie, calling the police cars he presumed were still at the cliff.

“Artie, drop whatever you doin’ and get over here. Right now. I’m on the road to Rincon. You’ll see my car parked. I’m about half a klick due south of the car. The first really big clump of trees. Phone in and get an ambulance out here, mon. Also have somebody get a ladder from the station in Rincon. I’ll explain when you get here. Just get me that ambulance and ladder. I got a tourist in a tree with a broken leg and in serious shock. This bad shit, mon. Don’ tell nobody.”

Alex had just leapt and caught a sturdy low branch and pulled himself up to where Tim was. Other than the obviously broken leg, Tim Collins appeared to just have a lot of miscellaneous bruises on his face. Alex quickly removed the gag and deeply regretted he didn’t have some water.

“Tim, we’re getting help. Don’t try to move.”

“Animal,” he mumbled. “I didn’t see . . . it’s what I . . . comes out at night. He changed them . . . killers.” Then he lapsed incoherent.

“How, Tim?” The very air felt chilled now. “What did he do?”

“I was right . . . should have stopped . . .”

“Right about what, Tim. Talk to me.”

But now he seemed to have some kind of terrifying waking vision. His eyes grew wilder and he struggled against the rope, emitting low moans, and then began to scream in erratic bursts. After a moment, he stopped and just stared, comatose.

“Joost, I’m afraid to untie him till your guys get here. I think a straightjacket might well be in order. He’s hallucinating.”

“Those bastards come here and now there’s something horrible loose in my country,” Joost declared bitterly. “It’s that laboratory they won’t let nobody into, mon. That’s what’s brought this here.”

“Well, the football team they screwed up is going to leave the country any day now. Has to. The pre-season starts. The nightmare is soon going to be on somebody else’s watch. Your island and your donkeys will be safe again.”

“Don’ know if I’m gonna wait.”

Tim groaned again and struggled against the ropes.

“Tim, an ambulance is on its way.” Alex tried to keep his voice soothing. “You shouldn’t move until an ER team gets here. Can you understand me?”

Just another terrified stare.

Whatever Tim knew about what’s going on at the lab, Alex mused bitterly, he sure as hell wasn’t going to be talking about it any time soon. Just like in the movies, where the would-be whistle blower is always the one who gets taken out first, on the way to spill the beans.

Now they could hear a torrent of sirens tearing up the roadway, then the brush. The ambulance and a squad car somehow found a way off-road and moments later two orderlies were running toward the tree with oxygen and a stretcher. A uniformed cop was coming with a ladder.

My God, Alex realized, I haven’t told Charlie. She still thinks Tim drowned.

So what the hell was this all about? Somebody mugged Tim, tied him up in a tree, while some of the others faked a car accident. It was all so calculated.

“Tim.” He looked down again. “The ambulance is here. You’re going to be okay.”

“No,” he mumbled, regaining his voice. “No. Come back to kill me.”

And they probably would have, Alex thought. Our cave-men ancestors doubtless ‘warehoused’ their kill in a tree. So the jackals, the scavengers, couldn’t get it. Jesus!

Joost had taken charge as two cops set a ladder up and three medics strapped Tim to a stretcher and lowered him down. He was struggling against his restraints and babbling incoherently.

“Get an IV in him,” Joost ordered.

Moments later a siren on the black and white led the way, headed for the hospital in the capital city of Kralendijk.

“All right,” Joost declared, “now we actually do have a crime scene, though the most we’ve got so far in the way of clues are some sandy footprints. And the weather’s already looking like rain.”

“Well,” Alex said bitterly, “that rope came from somewhere. So did the duct tape they gagged him with. But so far this is kind of a low-grade crime. A guy was assaulted and his car totaled. You could call it attempted murder, but you can’t really prove that. So far nobody’s actually killed anybody. The major concerns I have right now are, one, make sure that kid has round the clock police protection till that football team and everybody involved with this experiment are off the island, and two, I need to get security for somebody else here who I think is at risk. That woman who was with me this morning, who came down from New York. I’m terrified she could be next.”

“You tellin’ me what to do now?”

“What I really think is you ought to lock up everybody connected with this Gene-Tech project, but unfortunately you don’t have the grounds. Yet. So how about running me over to the lab so I can try and introduce myself to the asshole I think might have been behind all this.”

DAY FOUR: Bonaire

Chapter Nineteen

August 9 Friday, 10:59 AM

Gene-Tech Lab Parking Lot

Charlize was charging out of the Gene-Tech lobby clutching her laptop when she saw Joost’s squad car pull up. Then Alex leapt out and the car did a U-turn and sped away.

“Perfect timing,” she yelled. “We’ve got to get the hell out of here. Now.”

“I came to locate your friend Harley. I think that bastard and I need to get acquainted.”

“Forget about it.” Her voice was quivering. “It’s over. Things got out of control in there just now and he’s in the middle of it. It’s . . . it’s not safe here anymore. Let’s just go.”

“Whatever . . . I see the car over there.” He grabbed her arm. “You’re not going to believe what we just . . . Tim’s alive but . . . Jesus!”

“He’s alive!” She enveloped him in a hug. “That’s wonderful! But how –?”

“Well, there’s a little more to it.” He squeezed her back as he examined the Toyota. “Keys in it?”

“Never took them out. No time. Wait’ll you hear what I’ve just learned from Penn. But first tell me all about Timmy.”

They piled in and he squealed tires getting out of the lot.

“He’s beat up but I think he’s going to . . . Joost sent him to the hospital down in Kralendijk.”

“My God,” she muttered, “you found him? Where –?”

“It’s incredible.”

As they headed toward the ocean road above the cliffs, he told her what he knew.

“Now,” he concluded, “we really need to get Tim as far away from here as possible, but I worry he’s in no condition to travel. He’s got a broken leg and he’s in a state of shock so profound he’s delirious. Thing is, he’s probably still a target. Humans are behaving like Bonaire has become the Island of Dr. Moreau. I think I must be hallucinating.”

“I wish you were. Only it’s the island of Dr. Harley Ryan. I finally had a chance to check the analysis of Harley’s tissue DNA that Penn sent back. Hang on to your sanity. The players’ tissue has DNA splices that are not in the human genome.”

“What!” Alex gasped.

“Harley has turned the New York Wolverines into a mixture of species. My guess is the dark triggers hormones that make the lower part of their brain think they’re something other than human. He’s created transgenic monsters.”

He was trying to get his incredulous mind around what she was saying. “Transgenic means –?”

“Cross-species gene transplants.” She was literally shaking. “In the plant and animal world, it’s done all the time. I’ve seen zebrafish with a jellyfish gene inserted so they glow in the dark. Another team has put a spider gene into goats, so they end up producing spider silk, stronger than almost any other manmade fiber, in their milk.”

“That’s incredible.” He felt like Rip Van Winkle.

“But this! And now Harley’s monsters are after us.” She shuddered. “Alex, we’ve got to get gone from here, ASAP.”

“I like that plan. But let’s do take a moment to look in on Tim, just in case. See if there’s any possibility whatsoever that he could travel, which I doubt. Mainly, I just want to check out the security around him. I told Joost he’s got to have 24-7 protection. Best case, we put you and him on a plane today.”

“Well, sweetie, any of us getting out of here real soon may take some doing,” she declared wistfully. “Harley’s been down here in never-never land doing his own thing in top-secret mode for a reason. Now I’m onto him. He’s not going to let me just waltz out of here.”

They’d reached the coastal highway, where Tim’s car had gone over. The scene was deserted except for a squad car waiting for the barge to arrive and hoist the wreck. A piece of yellow tape dangled from the railing, flapping in the tropical breeze from the sea.

“Nobody knows that Timmy’s been found and is in the hospital, right?” she asked suddenly.

“Just Joost and his guys.”

“Well then,” she declared after a thoughtful pause, “till we know more than we do right now, I think he’ll be a lot safer just staying ‘dead’.”

“That may be hard to pull off. Harley’s creations seem to have a sixth sense about what’s going on. They’ve probably already figured out what’s happened. There were police cars and ambulances all over the place.”

Before long, they were coming into the outskirts of Kralendijk and the late-morning traffic was picking up.

“My only phone is on the boat,” he continued. “Could we use your cell to get hold of Joost? I’m not entirely sure I could find the hospital here without some help.” He gave her the number for the station. When Joost came on, she handed him the handset.

“Hey, amigo, how’s our patient?”

“They sedated him and set his leg real quick. He really freaked, mon. They calling it ‘trauma.’ T’ink maybe he got a head concussion.”

“Joost, how many guys you got guarding him?”

“Just one, mon. Amal, he got a .38 and –”

“Well, maybe that’s okay for now, but tonight you’ve got to have some serious firepower there. Somebody’s going to find out he’s still alive and come back to finish the job.”

“Ain’t nobody goin’ find out, mon. We check him in as a John Doe. I tell my guys not to talk.”

This was not a moment for over-confidence, Alex reflected ruefully.

“Joost, if you don’t fully appreciate what you’re dealing with here, let me try to clarify matters. They’re going to come for him. It’s unfinished business.”

“Hey, mon, you givin’ me orders again? I know we got a situation, but I...”

“Okay, just tell me how to get to the hospital. I want to see him and maybe we can figure this out. We’re dealing with bodies being left in trees, for Chrissake. This is my thing. Let me try to think ahead of them.”

“Okay, mon. Come to the station. Then the hospital’s jus’ six blocks straight on down the street. I meet you there.”

“See you in five.”

When they pulled in to the hospital, Alex was relieved to see that everything felt normal. Joost had stationed his squad car discreetly down the street and was waiting in the reception area, sans uniform.

“Come with me. He down at the end of the hall.”

The Kralendijk hospital was stark, reminiscent of something that might have thrived in Eastern Europe a century ago, with once-white walls and severe fluorescent lighting.

“How many ways are there into this building?” Alex began. “You need somebody at every entry.”

“Hey, mon, lighten up. This goin’ be okay.”

“I wish I was as sure of that as you are,” he said. He exchanged glances with Charlie and realized she was equally concerned.

When they entered the room, one of Joost’s men was there, just like he’d said.

“Yo, Chief, nothin’ going on, mon. Maybe I go out, get somet’ing to eat, while you here.”

Alex thought he looked like he’d already spent plenty of time eating and devoutly wished he’d skip this one meal. But Joost nodded approval.

“Sure, mon, no problem. I’ll take over.”

He immediately grabbed his cap and bailed.

Tim had an oxygen feed in his nose and a saline IV in his arm. His eyes were closed. He was a specter of his former self. A nurse was watching a monitor that showed his heartbeat trailing across a green screen.

“Tim?” Charlie walked over and took his hand. “Timmy,” she said tearfully, “God, can you hear me?”

His eyelids flickered but he did not attempt to open them or to talk.

“Joost,” Alex was saying, “where can we put him that’s protected? You have got to physically isolate him in a way that is inviolable. Sooner or later that . . . whatever it is out there is going to come for him again.”

“Let me talk to them here ‘bout what else we could do. They goin’ t’ink I’m crazy.”

Charlie was gently massaging Tim, whose face was innocent and angelic. He just shifted slightly and otherwise did not respond.

Suddenly Alex stiffened and reached for Joost’s hip holster. He flipped it open in a single motion and drew the automatic, then clicked off the safety and smoothly racked a round into the chamber.

“Charlie, get against the wall. There’s something going on in the hallway.”

He quickly slammed and locked the door to the room just moments before a heavy weight lunged against it from the other side.

“AKAH!” He yelled and fired a round into the bottom of the door. There was a hoarse growl from the other side.

He fired two more rounds and shouted again.

Growls and yelps erupted, followed by the sound of footsteps retreating.

While the black Bonaire nurse cowered in the corner of the room, whimpering in the island patois, Charlie stepped up to Joost and declared angrily, “All right, that’s it. They know exactly who’s in this room. They can smell him and they came to kill him, and maybe us too. You’ve got to get him out of here.”

Alex passed back the pistol. “Joost, get on that radio and get some backup in this place. Whoever’s at the station now.”

“You got it, mon.”

While he was talking, voices were yelling through the door, asking if anyone was hurt.

“Back away, mon,” he yelled when he’d finished. “You see anybody out there?”

“Some guys come in the back way, but when the shootin’ start, they take off, out the back again. Didn’t get a good look. Just a bunch of pissed off white guys.”

“Okay, mon, get back from the door.” Joost was slipping a fresh clip into his automatic. “I goin’ take a look around and I don’ want be crowded.”

Charlize was hovering next to Tim, as though prepared to protect him with her very body. When the shots rang out, Tim had emitted a cry of surprise and a startled jump, as though receiving an electric shock. But now the sedative was again keeping him comatose.

“Chief,” Alex said with a worried expression, “unless you’ve got another firearm you can spare me, then I think you ought to stay put till your boys get here. We’ve got one job right now and that’s to keep this room secure.”

“Everybody still givin’ me orders. I’m gonna have a look around the hallway at least.”

When he opened the door, the gathering crowd of white-uniformed nurses and orderlies saw the firearm he was holding and fell back.

“Which way they go?” he demanded.

Half a dozen in the wide-eyed crowd pointed toward a set of swinging doors at the far end of the florescent-lit hall.

“They run out, mon. I t’ink they be gone.”

There came the sound of approaching sirens, which terminated abruptly at the front. The entire Kralendijk city police contingent came racing down the hall, weapons drawn, pushing people out of their way.”

“Okay, Joost,” Alex said, “that’s more like it. But our visitors here are just going to regroup and come back and tear this place apart.”

“You don’ know that, mon.”

“I know they’re relentless—and smart. They figured out where he was and damned near beat us here. We still don’t know what we’re up against.”

“I talk to hospital Chief of Staff here, see what we can do.”

“Alex,” Charlize said in a quiet, conspiratorial voice, “there’s nothing more we can manage here. And you were right. Tim can’t be moved and he’s not going to be talking for a long, long time. I’d like to get back over to the Plaza and take care of some things, if you know what I mean. I just want to be around people. Lots of people.”

“Let’s go.” He turned to Joost. “This madhouse is all yours, amigo. Good luck.

DAY FOUR: Bonaire

Chapter Twenty

August 9 Friday, 11:49 AM

Plaza Beach Resort, Kralendijk

“The airport was pretty busy the afternoon I came in,” Charlize was saying as she hastily bolted out of the Toyota. “Surely I can get a plane somewhere. Time to trust Tim to Joost and his backup and go. Will you drive me? I guess my Saab’s still over at the diner. God, what a mess!”

“I’ll grab my essentials too,” Alex said, wrenching open his door. “Get you safely on a plane and then I’ll think about the boat.”

“Meet you back here in five.”

She was extremely dismayed. How ruthless—how unhinged—had Harley really become? He’d surely sent those goons to the hospital to finish off Tim, and perhaps even her. If he had half a brain left, he was certain to suspect she’d head for the airport ASAP.

With that grim thought, she charged up the pebbled walkway past the majestic palm trees and then headed for the front desk to grab her key.

The clerk was a pleasant young black man with close-cropped hair, a flowered shirt, and an eternal smile. “Hey, you got a nice surprise waitin’, mon,” he beamed. “Your father jus’ come by. He waitin’ in your room. Said he takin’ you lunch.”

Oh shit.

“There must be some mistake.” My God, were they coming after her already? She felt like she’d just been stabbed by a pitchfork. “What did he –?”

“I got impression he want surprise you.”

“I’ll bet. Thanks for telling me. And please let me know if any other pleasant ‘surprises’ show up.”

She warily accepted her key. It couldn’t be Harley, so who then?

It didn’t matter. Whoever had lied his way into her room was just going to have to stand aside. He was only one and she’d already stood down three of them at the lab. She didn’t need Alex for this. Grasping the key, she marched across a breezeway and down the hallway, nervously ramping up her courage.

When she opened the door to her room, she was confronted by none other than Buck Press, sitting on the couch and sipping a sour mash from the mini bar.

Good grief, what was he doing here? He couldn’t be in cahoots with Harley; he was the one complaining about him. But who knew any more what was up?

“Harley figured you’d be coming back here, maybe thinking to try and bail on us,” he declared ominously. “That tells me it’s time me and you had a little talk. To begin with, I understand there was a minor ruckus up there at the lab this morning. He called to warn me some of the boys went a tad haywire. But you oughtn’t to let–”

“Haywire? Turned into paranoid murderers is more like it. When I showed up, they were ready to start tearing him limb from limb. Maybe I should have let them. Oh, and I don’t suppose he got around to telling you about what happened last –?”

“Missy, Lamar Nolan supposedly sent you down here to straighten out Harley’s little problem, but the situation’s mainly gone to shit even worse since you got here. What the hell are you doing about the job he claims he sent you to do?”

“I’ve gotten no cooperation from Harley.” She got the uneasy feeling he was going to resort to threats at any moment. “In fact, now that he’s gone completely –”

“Well, I’ll see what I can do to take care of any misunderstandings you may have with young Dr. Ryan. He keeps losing sight of the fact he’s currently under contract to work for me.”

“You really have no idea what you’re dealing with, do you?” The conversation was growing increasingly unnerving. “I’m not sure I do either, but I don’t intend . . .”

She stopped herself. Should she, she wondered, tell him point blank she fully intended being on the next flight out of the country?

“I was here in town when Harley got hold of me. Said he’s a mite worried that if you up and skip on us, then you could go around giving folks the wrong impression about his project. I told him you wouldn’t likely be doing anything like that, sensible, prudent young lady like yourself. But I can see to that if I have to. Wouldn’t do anybody a lick of good.”

“Look, this project is a huge disaster and Harley’s responsible. I don’t need to come down here and be threatened by . . . you set about to tamper with people and now Harley has actually done it. He’s created . . . God knows what.”

“Everybody involved knew it could be risky, but these boys want to win as much as I do. And they’ve got as much riding on it. And by God it’s worked. It’s nothing short of a damn miracle. Now you’re supposed to be here helping Harley iron out a few kinks. Not throwing a hissy fit.”

“Forget about it.” She was opening a closet door and taking her suitcase off a shelf. “I’m packing just in case. You’ve got a bigger problem than a few ‘kinks’. Before long somebody’s going to get killed. They got real close last night.”

“Well, if you’re thinking about bailing on us, then you can forget about it. The only place you’re going is back up to Rincon. Lamar said you’d solve this problem, and I damned well expect you to do exactly that.” He slammed down his empty whisky glass and rose to leave. “I’m not playing around here, missy. You ain’t leaving this island till I punch your damn ticket.”

He stalked out of the room, cursing.

All right, she decided, this has got to be fast. Her hands were shaking as she frantically shoved everything she owned into her old-fashioned suitcase and headed for the front. On the plane back, she’d take a shot at cracking Harley’s data bank and maybe find out where he’d been getting his non-human DNA.

At the desk, she threw her key toward the clerk as she swept by and yelled over her shoulder that her bill would be covered by Gene-Tech. When she got to the parking lot, she felt a surge of relief to see Alex packed and waiting, the wreck of a Toyota already running.

“You can almost see the airport from here,” he said, revving toward the highway. “This is going to be quick.”

“Great, just try not to take out any donkeys. And so you should know, I just had a visit from the owner of the Wolverines, Buck Press. He was waiting in my room. He threatened me there was no way I was leaving the island. Said he would personally see to it. We’d better move fast.”

“ Let’s hope he doesn’t know something we don’t.” The guarded tone in his voice was not sanguine.

A shallow salt marsh stood between them and the airport, and Alex quickly made his way around it, breaking the speed limit while avoiding the random herds of donkeys.

A big Airbus from KLM was coming in low as they pulled into the drop-off area. “Hey,” Charlize said, suddenly upbeat with hope, “maybe that’s my ride. Drop me off and I’ll get in line for a ticket, while you park. I’ll just go wherever it’s going, Moon River or probably back to Amsterdam. Then . . . shit.”

“You noticed it too?” He nodded to the left, sadly. “That black SUV parked over there by the curb?”

“That’s one of the ones in the fleet they have at the lab. Guess Buck Press wasn’t kidding. Harley’s got us made. It could be lab security or, God help us, some of the players.”

“Guess we’ll just keep on going then,” he said. “Doesn’t look like there’s anybody in it, so they must already be inside. It’s a stake-out.”

“So what now?”

“Well, Cap’n Russell, looks like we’re comin’ up on Plan B.”

“You mean –?

“That 38-foot Hunter moored there in the Kralendijk marina. We’ll have to wait till dark and then figure some way to get on board without being attacked and killed. From here on we have to assume our every move is being stalked.”

“Any thoughts on how we do it?”

“I have a crazy idea. I assume you’re PADI certified. Let’s go over and check in with Joost. He’s the last friend we have on the island.”

DAY FOUR: Bonaire

Chapter Twenty-One

August 9 Friday, 2:18 PM,

Police Station, Kralendijk

“You t’ink you can pull this off, mon?” Joost’s eyes betrayed his skepticism. They’d been lucky enough to catch him at the station. He looked to be close to a mental meltdown. Well, weren’t they all.

“Joost, they’re not going to let her leave the island by normal means,” Alex declared, heatedly, “for all kinds of reasons. They’re already watching the airport, for Chrissake. If they catch her trying –”

“Actually, they’re probably going to do their best to kill me,” Charlize interjected, her voice shaking at the thought, “and maybe Alex too. We’ve seen too much, we know too much. So right now what I need is a phone, so I can get on the Internet and download my PADI dive certification data from my personal files. Then you can hold my computer till tonight.”

“We got Wi-Fi here now, mon. Just hook up.” Then he turned to Alex. “Tell me, what do they know about you, amigo? Do they know you got a sail–?”

“Joost, I don’t know what they know, but I can tell you one thing, they have instincts that are perfect pitch.” He found the very thought scary. “This guy Harley sent the team owner to the Plaza to threaten Charlie and then he sent a security team to the airport to make sure she didn’t sneak out. He was ahead of us at every turn. Now there’s only one way left for us to get out of here and he’s bound to figure it out real soon, no matter what he knows this minute. It’s pretty damned obvious.”

Charlize was hooking her laptop to a printer. “If he doesn’t have a tail on us already, he will by nightfall,” she said, her voice still tense, “when they’ll switch modes and just simply come and get us and give us the Tim treatment. Alex is right. That’s why we’ve got to go to the one place where we can lose them.”

“All right,” Joost said. “Hate to see you leaving so soon. But if what you t’ink is true is true, then you two getting out of here tonight is –”

“Hey, look,” Alex grinned gamely, ”I’ll be back and we’ll go fishing. I’ll make it to up to you for this.” He really liked Joost Vlet. He found him honest, competent, and possessed of enormous heart. In Guatemala they had together stared into the depths of human evil . . . and now here they were again.

“Yeah, mon, I know you will. Maybe I’m just as happy not to have to worry about you two. I got enough worries already. That boy they nearly kill, we moved him to intensive care over at the hospital. It’s a lockdown. Metal door, you gotta have a card. And I broke out the sawed-off shotguns and I got eight of my guys, four at each entrance. And we ain’t talking rubber bullets. They come back again, they goin’ be a new kind of sausage.”

“Then do you have anybody left to take care of what we need you to do for us?”

“You met Joe at the marina, mon. When I tell him impound your boat, he goin’ do it.”

“Good man. And he’ll help you deal with our stuff?” Alex still felt vaguely uneasy about follow-through. This was Bonaire, after all, not Zurich.

“That the least of it, mon. He goin’ be all over that t’ing like white on rice. Then he goin’ seal the hatch in broad daylight and make sure nobody don’ pull some shit. No way anybody get a dingy.”

“Joost, you are a Prince Amongst Men. I guess there’s nothing left for us to do but be tourists.”

“Next time, mon.” A hearty Bonaire hug.

“Next time.” He already felt pang of separation. They went way back.

Charlie was finishing downloading her PADI scuba certification and by then Alex had gotten his from his suitcase. They walked out and dropped into the battered Toyota.

“I have never felt so naked,” Charlize said, shivering slightly. “If they don’t already know where we are right now, they’re not a tenth as smart as I think they are.”

“Which means we hide in plain sight.” He tried a reassuring smile. “You know where we go from here. We do not let the worries of the world trouble us.”

“Easier said than you know what. I tell you, this is surely the most bizarre thing I’ve ever done in my life. It really does feel like waltzing in a graveyard.”

“Cheer up,” he grinned mischievously. “We’re going to Vicks. On Bonaire everybody goes to Vicks.”

They headed north up the coastal road, as though they were going to the Nolan Pharma lab. The late summer sun still had a few hours to go.

Alex kept checking the rear-view mirror and now he was pretty sure they were being followed. It was what he expected, even wanted. Better to tag the guys gunning for you in advance and keep surprises to a minimum. Now, with luck and a couple of breaks, this was going to be the part where he and Charlie faked them out.

Most tourists come to Bonaire for one reason. It has some of the most sophisticated scuba diving in the world. Many of the finest reefs were saved by an American known to everybody as “Captain Vick”. What he was captain of, nobody ever quite knew. He’d come to Bonaire three decades earlier and awoke the locals to the coral-reef treasure that surrounded them, causing laws to be passed that saved the coastal environment and made everybody rich off nature tourism. Now, Captain Vick’s Habitat, a full-service 24-hour dive shop, was about a half-mile up the road from Kralendijk to Rincon. Though Bonaire was awash in dive shops, it was virtually a sacred spot, the Vatican of the dive churches.

Alex knew Vick slightly, as did everybody who’d ever passed through the island, but on this day he hoped he wouldn’t be around. The security deposit for the scuba gear would end up permanently on his credit card because it was highly unlikely that it was ever going to find its way back to the shop. He was going to be blacklisted as a thief. Joost would have to explain to Vick someday what happened.

“Okay,” Alex said, gamely trying to ignore their tail and not unnerve Charlie, “we’ve got PADI certification and passports, so we’re just tourists, dive nuts.”

The resort sprawled along the beach, with bungalows and palm trees. But the epicenter was the dive shop; all else was there to support it.

They were in luck. A dive departure for 7:00 PM, for a night dive, was posted on the blackboard. There was an ample shower deck and rinse tanks. It was all frosting on a cake that wasn’t going to get made.

Alex was keeping an eye on the parking lot. Sure enough, their tail, a black SUV like the one parked at the airport was pulling in, with three burly occupants. After it parked, they just sat. Fine, because nothing was going to happen till dark. And the dive boat left at 7:00, at least an hour before.

Since they were being watched, Alex went for a detailed, elaborate head fake. They signed up with great flair, including two bottles of air each. The second bottle was just to avoid suspicion; they weren’t planning to need it. They also rented two wet suits though they had no plans to dive deep enough to worry about water temperature.

They checked out the masks and regulators, and then loaded their gear onto the dive boat. A vision of peeling gray paint and warped decks, it was showing its years and usage, but it had a few nautical miles left in it.

“You know,” Charlize said, “I think I’m ready to hit the beach bar. I’ve just given my most valuable earthly belongings to some Caribbean cop, people are trying to kill me, and I’m in the middle of something that could destroy my life’s work. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I think that’s going on a serious bummer.”

“Works for me,” he said. He was still holding off telling her that a car full of goons was camped in the parking lot cooking up evil. It would seriously mar her karma.

They changed into swimsuits in the back of the dive shop, put their valuables in dive containers hung around their necks, then strolled down the sandy beach and settled in at the bar. Two Amstels.

“Here’s to staying alive,” Charlie said, and they clicked bottles.

As she looked around the thatch-roofed, sand-floored bar, she felt she was in a surreal time warp. Sunburned divers with long hair and tattoos were knocking back their beers, smoking American cigarettes and trying to top each other’s dive yarns. The sun was headed toward a glorious sunset down the road and a ten-knot breeze was coming up from the south and gently swaying the coconut palms. Who could think there was anything amiss with the world?

“Okay,” he said, “time for that long-awaited talk. You declared you had a further insight about all this.”

“I had the strangest experience this morning. Harley had done something to freak out some of the players. But he managed to lock them in his lab and sound a Code One alarm. However, just as I got there, they broke the door down and were coming after him to—God knows what. Tear him limb from limb, probably. The security staff was there with Tasers, which Rachel was screaming at them not to use, and then I had this flash of crazy insight. I thought they were acting prehistoric, like animals, and I decided to treat them like it. I assumed the role of dominance and started ordering them around. I acted like they were on my territory and I was the boss. And guess what, it worked. They bought it. They stopped. I stared them down with a bluff.”

“That’s a good technique to use with bears in the wild,” he said, delighted that she was starting to think like him, “till the day it doesn’t work. Then you could use a sturdy tree real quick.”

“Well, before they could pick up on how terrified I really was, I just stalked out of there, acting unfazed.”

He processed the information and took another sip of beer. It was refreshing and reminded him he hadn’t had solid food since the previous evening.

“Want to take a wild guess about what’s going on?” he asked apprehensively. The implications were too disturbing to even think about.

“Not till I study the DNA data and deconstruct it. But off the top, I’d say his DNA splices are producing proteins that are acting on their brains like drugs, or hormones, producing intense paranoia. With the non-human DNA I think he could have regressed them back about fifty ice ages. There may be a way to reverse that, maybe to restore a million years of evolution—who knows—but this is uncharted territory in gene therapy.”

Talk about scary, Alex thought. Here they were talking about altered DNA in a rundown bar with sand on the floor while there were goons in the parking lot who were at that moment possibly producing weird chemicals in their brain and with muscles that belonged on Godzilla, undoubtedly preparing to stalk them like wolves stalking a rabbit. But that’s not what was really frightening.

“What you said just now. About how they responded to a challenge to their dominance. That dovetails with a freaky thought I had when we found Tim in that tree. That’s something Big Cats do. Leopards, for example. They warehouse their prey in a tree. Could it be these guys have regressed their mind into some kind of nocturnal feline hunter.”

“You mean the way Native Americans used to identify with animal spirits? Like the wolf. Or the Maya with the jaguar?”

“That kind of question is definitely above my pay grade.”

“Okay, we can speculate about this later,” Charlize finally said with a sigh as she stared down the beach. “Don’t look alarmed, but I think some of them are already here.”

“I noticed,” he said, hoping to sound nonchalant. “I’m not sure about their plans, but on second thought maybe we shouldn’t wait around to find out.”

“You mean leave now?” she said, puzzled. “It’s way before the dive.”

“Well, we could head down to the beach for a swim, then circle back and try to sneak our gear off the boat. With luck we might get the jump on them.”

“Damn,” she declared, taking a last hit of Amstel. “I’m getting a little tired of needing luck.”

Together they walked quickly down the sandy beach, and then out a narrow spit that extended into the lagoon. It ran for about a hundred feet and, at the end, there was a mixture of tourists, though mainly a clutch of Dutch topless sun worshippers who were killing time ahead of the night dive. Everybody had long hair, short beards, leather tans, conspicuous mammary augmentation, and flaunted Eurotrash cool.

When they reached the water’s edge, Charlize glanced back. Sure enough, three burly men in workout sweats were coming down the beach toward the dock.

“Those guys?” she whispered. “I saw them at the lab. They’re part of the Wolverines offensive line.”

“Let’s get into the water. Before they spot us.”

They headed for the opposite side of the spit, and quickly dove in. They took turns swimming underwater as they rounded the spit and headed for the stern of the 37-foot dive boat. By the time they were halfway there, the three players had reached the dock and were glancing around and appearing confused.

“They’ve temporarily lost us,” Alex hissed between strokes and then quickly dove under again, disappearing.

Well, she thought, diving again herself, surely not for long. Part of the problem was, as long as the players stayed there on the dock, there was no chance of getting the scuba gear off the boat unobserved.

And as they sneaked peeks up out of the water, they watched the three stand staring for what seemed like an eternal moment, then split up: two heading down the beach toward the spit and the topless sunbathers, the third heading the other way. Charlize and he exchanged glances and both went under again. The dive boat was now only about 50 feet away.

Okay, Alex thought, maybe we’ll luck out and get our gear after all. But we’ve still got to think about what to do next. With their super vision they’ll see us soon enough; and then, God knows what they’ll do. We’ve got to dive as quickly as we can, because they can easily out-swim us on the surface.

A few more strokes and Charlie reached up and grabbed the transom railing of the dive boat. It was old and grimy. He was right behind her, grabbing it too. The weathered aluminum felt like the first taste of security.

“Alex,” she said in a low, agitated voice, “this is a hell of a way to check out of a country. All kinds of visa laws are about to be broken.”

“Given our experience over the last 24 hours I’d say all kinds of laws had been broken. An undocumented departure will not even rise to the noise level.”

“Then screw it. Let’s hit the trail.”

“I’ll try to grab the gear as inconspicuously as possible.”

As she hovered near the stern, her face barely out of the water, he pulled himself over the transom and grabbed a couple of masks with regulators, then two bottles of air. Finally, he grabbed weights and two pairs of flippers. He slid them back over the transom to her, and then dropped into the water.

“The two guys headed for the spit just stopped,” he whispered. “Could be they spotted me. We’ve got to make fast work of this.”

“We could head over there.” She gestured with her head toward a small island, Klein Bonaire, in the center of the bay. “Wait there till dark.”

“And then scuba over to the marina. Sounds like a plan.”

He helped her strap on her air bottle and then connected it to her regulator mask. She did the same for him.

“Let’s go,” she whispered. “We can just carry the flippers and put them on later.”

The last thing they heard as they submerged was the sound of running footfalls coming down the dock.

He glanced at her and saw that she was pointing straight down. He nodded agreement. The near shore was shallow, probably 30 feet at most, but at about 50 yards out, it dropped off into the abyss. They descended down to the bottom and put on their flippers.

That was when they saw the three Wolverine offensive linemen coming after them, under water and holding their breath. They were powerful swimmers, undoubtedly there to do Harley’s unfinished business.

They’re stronger than we are but we’ve got flippers and air, Alex thought with a glimmer of hope. If we can just make it out to the drop off, we can head straight down and we’ll stand a chance.

It was a close race, and the players were gaining on them. They were just too fast and their metabolisms were just too efficient.

Deeper, Alex thought, we’ve got to go deeper. Now.

He stayed close to Charlie so they would be engaging them together if it came to that. Now they were getting closer to the edge of the shelf. Another 20 seconds and they would be right above it. Then it would be just a straight-down power descent into the dark.

How much longer could the players stay underwater without breathing? he wondered. Surely at least two minutes had gone by, possibly three. He figured these guys might be super athletes, but they still had to breathe. Eventually. Right? If not, you had to add world-record free diving to their list of new superhuman skills.

At that moment, the player in the lead grabbed Alex’s ankle and pulled him around. His face was contorted with anger, or was it determination. Alex felt like he was looking across a scrimmage line at some gorilla inches away who was bent on killing him with his bare hands.

Shit, he thought with horror, we didn’t make it.

As he whirled around in the water, he reached into his weight belt and drew out a small, serrated diving knife. He twisted down and drew a slash across the player’s wrist.

The player let go of Alex’s ankle and grabbed his own wrist to staunch the bleeding. The water around them rapidly began turning crimson. Alex couldn’t help but wonder for a second if there were sharks around? He had heard that they can smell blood for up to a mile. Then the player gasped and started to choke. One of the other two grabbed him and started pulling him toward the surface, while the third came after Alex again.

Go, he yelled inwardly. Below them, the dark abyss loomed. Fifteen seconds and they could just disappear.

That’s when Charlize joined the fray. She’d realized that she too had a knife in her belt. She drew it and swam up beneath the third guy as he was reaching for Alex and laid a slash down his thigh. He reacted to the pain and spun around. She brandished the knife at his throat and he drew back. At that moment, Alex whirled and attempted to gouge his left eye. He opened his mouth to yell and started choking.

Then he grabbed Charlize’s hand and pointed into the dark abyss below and together they dove down. The figure in the light above them stared for a moment, as though making a decision, then revolved and stroked for the surface, leaving a trail of blood.

We’re almost free, he thought as they plunged downward into the dark. He sensed that Charlie was next to him and in the vague twilight, he pointed west, toward the uninhabited scrap of land called Klein Bonaire. They now had to swim about a quarter mile.

It felt like they were prey trying to outwit a predator. Actually, he thought, that’s exactly what was happening. And the hunting wasn’t over, he thought grimly. There was no reason not to believe that Harley or some of the players wouldn’t be waiting at Occam’s Razor when they eventually got there.

Charlize settled in next to him, again a diving buddy. She had probably saved his life. He wished they could talk.

Now they had come back up from the abyss and as they moved through the azure tropical waters it was like floating in space while curious, multicolored fish flitted around them, green and orange and blue parrotfish, angelfish, triggerfish. It was as though they were back in a tropical paradise, with no thoughts of being killed. He suspected Charlie relished the utter freedom of the moment.

However, like all moments, it couldn’t last. Tonight, if everything went according to plan, she’d be working on the purloined disk of Harley’s research data with her powerful laptop, trying to crack the encryption and figure out exactly what he did. The only catch was, they both had to still be alive and out of Bonaire.

He surfaced and she came up with him. It turned out they were over halfway to the island. He removed the regulator from his mouth and took a deep breath.

“What do you think? Maybe we ought to be conserving our air.”

“Could they still spot us?” She was looking back in the direction of the dive shop. People were specks milling around, preparing to go out, but other than that, nothing.

“Don’t kid yourself. If they want to find us, they’ll find us. But out here we’ll see them coming. I hope.” He began shutting down the first-stage regulator. “I say we just jack up our buoyancy and let the tide carry us in. If we can stay still and mostly submerged, they’ll be hard-pressed to spot us. Assuming they’re not reading our minds. Which may not be that farfetched.”

They drifted for another fifteen minutes and then lightly stroked and in a few minutes were climbing out onto the sandy shore. They squatted there on the beach, loosening their gear.

“I suggest we just get out of sight, as best we can,” he said, feeling momentary relief that they were halfway through their escape and still in one piece.

There was nobody around. The island was deserted. Under different circumstances, it could be the spot for a romantic interlude.

As they trudged up the beach toward a rocky juncture and some palm trees, the sun was starting to falter.

“Alex, why are you doing all this for me?” She was shaking out her hair. He thought she looked stunning in the golden light of encroaching sunset.

“You’d do the same for me.” Well, he hoped she would.

“I always remembered you as a kind of rough and tumble guy, but you were instinctively kind and caring too, to the point that I never really knew which was the real you. But now you’re a little bit of both. You’ve stepped into my personal nightmare and risked everything to get me out of here.” She sighed. “Honestly I’ve missed having someone around that I could respect. For all your maddening craziness, I admire your utterly free spirit. You always managed to think and act ‘outside the box.’ For you, there was no ‘box’.”

“Well, we need some of that un-box thinking now.” He was trying to come up with something really cool to say but couldn’t manage anything.

“My brain is jumbled. Something horrible is going on. I don’t know what it is, and knowing what it is, is my job. Harley’s turning people into monsters. What’s the relationship between...?”

“First things first. Right now, we’ve got to work on maintaining a relationship with our ass. We need to analyze these guys’ strengths and weaknesses. Surely they’re going to figure there’s a chance we’re headed for the Hunter, in spite of the fact Joost is doing his best to throw them off the scent. So how do we handle that?”

“I’ll make it simple,” she said firmly. “They’re ten times stronger than we are. So we just have to be ten times smarter.”

He glanced at the sunset. “We want it dark but not too dark. We want to be moving shadows. Just at the end of the half light, when it’s hardest to see.”

“Since we’ve got to scuba over to the marina,” she declared, “I’d guess we’ve got about an hour and a half to get smart. It may be the most important thinking we’ll ever do. Either that or it’ll be our last.”

DAY FOUR: Bonaire

Chapter Twenty-Two

August 9 Friday, 6:43 PM

Kralendijk town marina

When you’re ten feet down, you have only a vague sense of what the sun is doing up above; but Alex suspected the light was fading rapidly. He hoped so, because that would mean their timing was just about perfect.

They’d been doing the scuba, just under the surface, from Klein Bonaire for 20 minutes and he assumed they must be near the marina by now. He was beginning to tire, though not Charlize, or so it seemed. Was he getting old(er)? He soon noticed dark objects on the surface above them, the hulls of boats.

And sure enough, she saw them too and turned and swam toward him, pointing toward the west. Just visible in the dimming the light was the large hull of a yacht tied to a red mooring ball. Definitely the Hunter.

How did she know? Good guess maybe. He nodded and they flippered toward it. The gauge on his air tank was growing dangerously low, down to only 500 psi. It was definitely time to surface. The question was, what awaited them topside?

The tide was going out, and Occam’s Razor’s bow was tied to the mooring ball, which meant the stern would be away from the shore, hopefully shielding it from prying eyes. Charlize reached up and caught the stair of the transom. Then she popped her face above the water and took the regulator out of her mouth. He did the same and immediately hit worry mode.

Shit! A dark face had appeared over the stern railing. Then . . .

“All taken care of, mon. Your stuff on board.”

“Joost, what the hell are you doing here!” Alex hissed between his teeth. “Did anybody see you come down?”

“Don’ t’ink so, mon. T’ing is, I don’ trust nobody else come down here and do this t’ing. The dockmaster, Joe, not goin’ to do all the paperwork to impound and quarantine this damn boat for one day for jus’ anybody. Too damned much trouble. It had to be me. I’d say you owe me at least one bottle of 12-year-old scotch.”

“Noted. Thanks.”

“But probably a waste of time. He say nobody show up to check anyway.”

“That’s actually good news,” Alex said with relief. “But it’s not over yet. I hope you’re armed and dangerous. Three human Godzillas jumped us up at Vick’s when we were leaving. We got away okay, but it was pretty ugly. The scuba gear saved us. But this time we’re going to be sitting ducks if they show up. I was hoping that impounding the boat would throw them off the scent, but even so this cannot be a big production.”

“Mon, you’d better wait till it good and dark. You actually got here a little early. That wasn’t part of the plan.”

“A lot of what’s happened today wasn’t part of anybody’s plan,” Charlize declared, holding onto the stern railing and lightly treading water. Then, “I guess we should be thankful Bonaire is practically on the equator. This is not a day to wish twilight time to linger.”

“You be okay,” Joost assured her. “Joe make sure nobody get access to this boat, since he has impounded it for suspected smuggling activity.”

“I’m impressed,” Charlize said, climbing on board like she was scrambling onto a life raft. “Are you saying nobody can get past –?”

“Joe, he got a sawed-off shotgun. People try steal boats, so nobody get on his dock, he don’ say so.”

“All right, Joost, so far so good, but I’m wondering if we shouldn’t have a little firepower of our own. We’ve already had a one-on-one with these guys and I’m not sure Joe and his sawed-off is going to be enough to do the job.”

“I already t’ink of that, mon. I brought you a couple of Saturday night specials, cheap .38’s, that I happen to come across last Saturday night. They not registered, and the paperwork is too damn much trouble anyway, so I never wrote them up and I left them down below on the nav table. They loaded. Jus’ make sure they never come back to Bonaire. You shoot somebody, those pieces got to feed the fishes.”

“Joost, you are the absolute greatest. Let me respectfully suggest you get the hell out of here, get up there, and energize Joe. Make sure he’s not hitting any Amstel or whatever.”

“Whatever you say, mon,” he declared with a grin. “When you two goin’ be ready to hoist? I got to get on home tonight.”

“We can have the boat ready in time for dark,” Alex declared, looking up at Charlize. “But tell me what you think. The dark might actually cut both ways. I get the feeling the boys get more vicious the darker it gets.”

She sighed. “There’s no actual proof of that.”

“Right now there isn’t much of anything we have any proof of,” he agreed, “but speaking of the dark, if it gets too far gone, we may need to think about running lights to get out of the marina. There are laws about those things and for good reason. I think it’d be better to take our chances and cast off while there’s enough light so we can actually see what we’re doing. The harbormaster Joe would doubtless lean toward that.”

“Well, I just want to get out of here,” Charlie said, her nerves starting to show through. “This place is way too quiet.”

“Good point about the quiet. Which is why I’m going to sail out of here. Tricky, but you don’t sneak with an engine running.”

He followed her up onto the boat and collapsed on the floor of the cockpit. Then he turned to Joost.

“Do me a favor. I need you to talk to Vick and tell him to just bang my American Express for the scuba gear. And tell him I’m sorry, but if you start loading this stuff into that rubber dingy you’ve got tied up to the mooring ball, we’re just advertising what’s going on. Besides, God help us, we may need it again.”

“Sure, mon, I do whatever you want.”

“Then get out of here. Just being around us you’re not safe. Go back up there and tip off Joe that we’re about to leave.”

“Sure t’ing, mon. I’ll be t’inking about you. But you got come back and see us.”

“Hey, my fondest hope.” He said it and he realized he meant it.

“Then do it, mon. And next time don’ wait so long.” He turned and headed for the bow. Seconds later he popped into the dingy and departed with a wave and a roar.

“Okay,” Charlize said, “enough with the macho wanking. This is a big boat by my modest standards. Do you really think you can sail us out of this marina? In the dark? Alex, sorry but I still remember you as being something of a screw-up on occasion.”

“It’ll be tricky,” he said, looking around the crowded harbor, “but I don’t think we have a choice.”

She sampled the wind. “I’d guess 10 knots. What do you think?”

“I wish it were less right here, in these crowded quarters, but I think we can do it,” he said, looking around more slowly and wrinkling his brow. “The way I figure it, we should just use the jib and avoid hoisting the main till we get clear.” He thought a moment. “I know it sounds crazy, but maybe we should rig the spinnaker now. Just in case.”

“All right,” she said, “this is gonna be scary so let’s get started. You just may have to brush me up from time to time.”

He was touched, but the need never arose.

DAY FOUR: Bonaire

Chapter Twenty-three

August 9 Friday, 7:20 PM

Gene-Tech Research Facility

at Rincon

Harley was glad he was in his lab with the lights on. It was round about now, at the coming of dusk, when he started getting the scary mood swings, when he became the person he didn’t recognize, did things he couldn’t remember. Now it even seemed that his daytime mind was slipping. He was losing his ability to grasp subtleties.

Truthfully, he had given up on reversing his condition himself. The data describing what he had done were all carefully organized but now he was beginning to get confused when he looked at them. This was the stage of a clinical trial where Charlie was always so perfect. She had great intuition about where to go next.

He’d wanted to kill her earlier today, but now he realized he had to get her back. No way could he handle this by himself any more. He had no distance, no perspective. As for getting help from Rachel, after what happened to Tim she was completely freaked and useless. She had barricaded herself down at the other end of the building. So Charlie’s appearance had turned out to be timely: at first she seemed an annoyance, but now, given the spooky turn of events like that lab blow-up this morning and the way she handled it, she was looking more and more like his salvation.

So where the he'll was she hiding? How had she given everybody the slip?

He was frustrated and he could feel his anger growing. It was not normal anger; it was as though a deep blue rage had settled over his mind. When he finally found her, what would he do? Would it take over?

Earlier today, after he had re-established his authority with Tiny and Bobby and Dutch, he’d then sent three offensive linemen—Jim Black, Bill Young, and James Danner—to go track her down and bring her back. The first place he told them to go was the airport; and sure enough, they’d just gotten there when she showed up, presumably with that new American tourist that Rachel had told him about. She clearly was planning to skip—maybe with him.

Then for some reason, maybe she smelled a trap, she spooked and took off. They trailed her to the police station and then up to a dive resort near the edge of town, where she and the character with her outmaneuvered them, this time resorting to scuba and slicing them up a bit in the process.

The boys didn’t know where they’d gone, but they finally thought they spotted them over on Klein Bonaire; but by the time they could get over there, she had vanished. The scheming bitch, Harley thought, feeling that blue rage wash over him again. Kill her, he decided. That’s what he really wanted to do anyway. He could feel himself rapidly losing his rational faculties. Could it be the onset of dusk outside?

“Where’s that New York hot-shot?” Buck Press was charging through the open door of his office. “I read her the riot act this morning and I expected to see her back up here, doing what Lamar sent her to do, saving your cock-up. So is she here or what?”

“Well, Buck,” Harley said, bristling at his tone, “you’re a little behind the curve on a heavy news day. Evidence suggests you didn’t work your powers of persuasion on Dr. Russell with any great success. She’s disappeared.”

He could feel himself turning defensive and dangerous and he hoped he could hold it together, though at this moment he didn’t give a damn if he killed Buck Press then and there.

“I did what needed to be done,” Press declared. “She got the message.”

“She has a funny way of showing it” He related what happened at the airport and then went on to report she was last seen scuba diving around a dive shop at the outskirts of town. “It’s just that it looks like for the moment she and this new guy she’s with have gone into hiding.”

“Scuba diving?” Press roared. “You klutz! You’re the one who could use a news update. I did a little intelligence gathering today. Had some of my people ID that ‘guy,’ since he’s buddy-buddy with the constabulary here. Also seeing as how he’s taking this lady doctor around like he’s driving Miss Daisy. That ‘guy’ has a forty-foot yacht moored in the marina downtown. He sailed in here coupla days ago. So they’re probably sailing out right about now.”

“What do you mean?” Harley was trying to get his mind around the information. A sail . . .? Jesus! They could—

“You having trouble with English? Like I said, I had him checked out and it turns out he’s down here for the purpose of delivering a boat out of Curaçao up to Jersey City. He’s got a big ocean-going sailboat, and word is he’s pretty damn good at handling it. So, how do you think that bears on what he’s going to do next, birdbrain?”

“My God,” Harley exclaimed, reaching for his car keys, “where’s he got this –?”

“There’s a marina downtown, Sherlock. Figure it out. Anybody looking for him is bound to find him real quick. He can’t hide the damned thing. Unless, of course, he’s already gone.”

Now that Harley thought about it, maybe he did remember noticing a sleek new yacht in the marina. Shit!

It suddenly all made sense. The stop at the dive shop, the scuba escape, the stalling on Klein Bonaire. As soon as it was dark, he was going to take Charlie and sail out of Kralendijk. Which meant they were probably making final preparations at this moment.

Damn! He again felt the stirring in his blood. There was no time to get any of the Wolverines to help him—assuming he could even find anybody. He had to just get down there. This minute.

Did he want to drag her back or did he want to just kill her? He wasn’t sure. But he damned well was going to kill that bastard helping her.

Then he thought a moment and a more complex plan suggested itself. Rachel might still be down at the other end of the facility. Get her to come along and help talk some sense into Charlie. Get her. By force if you have to.

“Buck, this social hour is going to have to be continued later.” He was headed for the door. “I’m going to do my best to pull this thing together.”

“Seems to me you need to pull yourself together. You don’t seem to know what the hell’s going on with my boys, and I sure as hell don’t know. What I do know is, we’ve got the pre-season opener coming up, and you’ve done something to my boys that’s screwed up their heads. So how is Cap going to coach this team when he don’t even know who they are anymore? Hell, they don’t know who they are.”

“You do what you’ve got to do, and I’ll do what I’ve got to do. And right now I’m outta here.”

He was through the door in a second, his emotions a jumble. Another reason he wanted Rachel was he was afraid what he would do if he were by himself. He was feeling his memory becoming confused. At some point, he knew he was going to enter another reality and completely lose control.

The daytime staff, lab technicians, had all gone home and the hallway was empty except for the guards.

Damn, maybe Rachel had already split.

But as he approached the room she’d moved to, he saw a sliver of light under the door.

Great! She was going to come with him whether she wanted to or not.

When he strode in, startling her, she was adjusting one of Nolan Pharma’s large microscopes, her dark hair tied back.

“What!” She jumped when she saw him.

“You’ve got to come with me, Rach, right now. You’ve got to help me get Charlie and bring her back.”

She looked at him with eyes full of fear, and contempt.

“Harley, I’m not going anywhere with you, you prick.” She turned away. “After what happened to Timmy, I don’t feel safe even being in the same room with you.”

“Well, you’re in the same room with me now. So let’s go. It’s possible my life depends on it, and for all anybody knows yours may too.” He seized her arm and before she knew it she was being forcibly urged down the hall. “Sorry, Rach, but we’ve got to get down to Kralendijk right now.”

“Harley, you shit, have you even been to see Timmy yet?” She was wrenching her arm away, but she realized there was no point in trying to turn back.

“You know, Rach, I really haven’t had a lot of time today for social calls.”

“Well, nobody seems to have much time today. But now you have all this time to go chasing after Charlie.” She sighed, as though coming to terms with their shared predicament. “All right, I’ll admit it. I wish she’d stay. All this after-dark stuff is really scary. But the one who’s really got to put a stop to it is you.”

They were passing through the lobby. Harley was fearful of what might happen when he was out of the bright lights of the building and into the dim parking lot. He knew the unsettled feelings he had would accelerate, but he thought he could control them long enough to get to the car.

When they reached it, he quickly switched on the dome lights. It helped a lot. Maybe, he thought, if he just focused on the lights on the road ahead, he would be okay.

“Okay, Rach, here’s the deal,” he said, heading for the highway. “I’m pretty sure Charlie is on a sailboat with that guy you told me she’s hanging out with. Down in the city marina, and about to sail.” He was trying to keep a grip and so far everything seemed okay. “We’re going to use sweet reason to try to talk her out of leaving.”

“Yeah, sure, Harley,” she snorted contemptuously, “that’s really your style. And if sweet reason doesn’t work, then what?”

“I’m a pretty persuasive guy.”

Fifteen minutes later, they were pulling into a parking space adjacent to the entry to the Kralendijk city marina. The flickering lights of town danced on the water.

“Thank God. See that big sailboat over there?” Harley said, jumping out. “That wasn’t there three days ago. And look, they’re unfurling that sail there in the front but they don’t have any lights. That’s got to be them. We’ve got to get out there now.”

A light was on in a small hut by dockside, a cheap frame structure with peeling blue paint. Undoubtedly the office of the harbormaster. Now, though, it was probably a security guard hanging out. The entire marina as well as the hut was surrounded by a tall chain-link fence. When they reached the gate, he realized it was locked.

Shit!

At that moment, a heavy-set black man wearing a windbreaker and a worn cap came charging out of the hut.

“What you want, mon?” he demanded as he approached, almost at a run. “The marina closed.”

“We won’t be a minute. We just need to talk to the people on that boat that’s about to sail.”

“Ain’ nobody on that boat, mon. It been impounded and sealed.”

“Then I guess that jib just hoisted itself. What say I take that harbor dingy and go out and have a look?”

“Don’ t’ink so, mon. When I say we closed, we closed.”

“Then I guess you just re-opened,” Harley growled, feeling a supernatural surge of anger. He seized the side of the locked gate and wrenched it open, shearing the metal.

“Mon, what you –!”

While Rachel proceeded to scream at him, Harley strode through the gate and grabbed the man by the throat and slammed him to the ground, then banged his head against the pathway until he was limp.

“My God,” Rachel yelled and then screamed again, “stop! You’re going to kill him.”

“Bastard got in my way. That’s what happens.” He was loping down toward the dingy. “Come on.”

He jumped in and immediately yanked the cord on the outboard. Rachel was still scrambling in, terrified of him, as it burst to life.

DAY FOUR: Bonaire

Chapter Twenty-Four

August 9 Friday, 8:33 PM

Kralendijk town marina

“Look,” Charlize whispered to Alex as she finished coiling a spinnaker sheet, “two people are over by the marina dingy.”

“Uh oh,” he said, a quick glance. “Joe’s not supposed to let anybody through. I think our cover just got blown.”

Then somebody started the dingy’s outboard motor.

“Shit. Get ready.” He bounded down the companionway and grabbed one of the .38’s Joost had left. He clambered back up, charged to the railing, and yelled over the roar of the outboard.

“Don’t come any closer.”

They just kept coming.

“Damn!”

Holding his breath and hoping he could see well enough to aim, he fired a warning round into the water in front of them, symbolically “across the bow.”

It worked! The motor immediately went silent, the echo off the docks dying away. Then Charlize shined a flashlight that she’d brought up from the hold.

It was Harley, naturally. But Rachel was with him, which Charlize hadn’t expected.

“Charlie, is that you?” Rachel yelled. They were about thirty feet away. “Why are you shooting at us? We just need to talk. Please don’t leave. I want you here with me.”

“Why are you on that asshole’s boat?” Harley yelled. “And turn off that damn light.”

“I don’t think so,” Charlize called back, her voice slightly unsteady. “Just stay away. We’ve got two 38’s and we know how to use them.”

“Charlie,” Harley yelled again, his tone softening slightly, “you need to get off that damned boat and come back to the lab. Together we can go through the strand data and try to figure out...”

“Harley,” she cut him off fiercely, “you’ve done nothing but threaten and bullshit me from the minute I got off the plane; and after what happened to Timmy, you’re dangerous to be around. I’ve got what I need to work with at my lab at Downtown, so I’m going back. The analytical software I need is all there.”

“What are you saying?” he bristled with alarm. “You’re taking my proprietary data? You know that’s completely...”

“Let’s just say I’ve got what I need to try to figure this out and possibly save your worthless ass.” And then, she thought, I’m going to shut you down.

“Damn it, Charlie, what are you doing? Are you getting even for something? I’d hoped we were beyond that.”

Alex noticed that when the flashlight strayed off him for a moment as the boat rocked, he would sometimes emit a strange noise, like a snarl.

“Charlie,” Rachel yelled, “please don’t go. After what happened to Timmy, I’m here all by myself and I’m terrified. I don’t want to be alone. With things prowling at night.”

Right, Charlize thought, probably including Harley.

“Then catch a plane and get out,” she shouted back. “Rach, I know you feel loyal to Harley, but he’s going to get you killed. If you’ll come to New York and help me, maybe we can fix this. But you’ve got to tell me exactly what you guys did. I’m going to figure it out eventually anyway. I know you went transgenic, but I need to know specifically what...”

“Charlie, damn it, I’m coming to get you,” Harley declared. “If you want to tell that asshole next to you to shoot me, then that’s what you’ll have to do. I don’t think he’s got it in him.”

He yanked the cord and re-started the outboard motor on the dingy.

Alex grabbed the flashlight from Charlize and said, “Quick. Go up to the bow and uncleat the mooring line. We’re out of here.”

Harley had successfully called his bluff. He didn’t have sufficient grounds to shoot Harley on Bonaire territory, though the thought had appeal.

As he kicked over the Hunter’s engine, the flashlight began to dim.

Shit! Weren’t they going to get any breaks?

“Charlie,” he ordered, “get ready. We’re going to power out of here. No point in sneaking now.”

He then fired two rounds into the inflatable rubber dingy.

Rachel screamed and dove into the water. Harley also dove, but he was coming for the Hunter.

Alex pulled the trigger again, hoping for another warning shot but only got an empty click.

Uh, oh. Joost’s Saturday Night freebee wasn’t fully loaded. Plan B time.

“Charlie, come and take the helm, quick,” he yelled, “I’ve got to be the welcoming committee.”

When she had the wheel, he rammed the engine into reverse and charged up to the bow, arriving just as Harley leapt four feet out of the water and seized the railing.

Jesus! he thought. That’s something an Olympic athlete couldn’t do.

As Harley had both hands engaged pulling himself over the bow rail, Alex caught him on the chin with a roundhouse punch and sent him flailing back into the dark. In the dim light, Rachel could be seen swimming for dear life toward the dock. But what had happened to Harley? He’d just disappeared.

With the motor in reverse, they were slowly backing out of the marina, emphasis on slowly. It’s not good enough, Alex thought.

“Bring us about,” he yelled back while still looking in vain for Harley. “Then get out of reverse and get us the hell out of here. Wide open.”

It was a risky maneuver here in the Marina, but he had faith in her. She seemed to know all about how to rig a spinnaker in record time. And sure enough, in less than half a minute she had skillfully brought Occam’s Razor about and reversed the engine. Seconds later they were headed out of the marina at a snappy ten knots.

He stepped back into the cockpit, relieved but still worried. “Okay, time to get some serious canvas going here.”

He now knew for sure that Charlize had great boating instincts and was a quick study. While she trimmed the jib, he got busy with the main and in moments it was unfurled. They were sailing. Better, motor sailing.

After what just happened, he wanted to get as far from the marina as he could, as fast as he could, and that meant heading for open sea and cruising around the far side of Klein Bonaire, where they’d just been.

Now the wind was on their beam and zipping them along. Kiefer had installed a Navionics Gold+ computerized chart system with a high zoom level card for the harbor here, and sailing in he’d confirmed there were shallows to worry about once they were past Klein Bonaire. Occam’s Razor also had Raymarine 24-mile radar and live Sirius Satellite weather. With all that and GPS they had everything they needed for a safe night sail.

His plan was to get them to Curaçao by morning and then catch the first plane back to New York. Plan A, the boat delivery and cruise, unfortunately was not going to happen. He wanted to stay with Charlize, for more reasons than he was comfortable admitting.

In an ideal world, the thought of sailing the Caribbean with Charlie as “First Mate” was his idea of heaven. But now he only had her for one night and they had a lot of seriousness to think about. As Amy would say, total bummer.

“Okay,” he declared finally, “maybe we’re safe. If you want to go below and get started on that data DVD—who knows, we might get lucky twice in one night.”

“Wish I didn’t think you were right,” she said wistfully, “Boy could I use some salt air and moonlight about now.”

She disappeared through the hatch. He was gratified that her reluctance seemed genuine. Shit, it would be so easy to take his eye off the ball at this moment.

He scanned the horizon for any signs of shipping to be avoided. He was looking so intently he literally did not register Harley when he pulled himself over the stern transom and into the cockpit behind him. He didn’t know Harley was there until he felt the stern mooring line whip around his neck and pull him down. He only yelled one warning to Charley before Harley lashed it onto the railing so hard it left him gasping for air.

I’m an idiot. I dropped my guard and let this happen. Now he’s going to kill us both.

As Harley turned and headed for the open hatch to go below, he was greeted by Charlize, pointing a spear gun and bounding up the stairs to meet him.

“Don’t make me do it, you bastard,” she challenged, emerging on deck. “You’re getting off this boat. I’ll give you a life jacket if you want, but I know you don’t need it. So just get the hell off.”

How had he done it? Alex wondered in panic. Was he hanging onto the transom all this time, or did he out-swim us? My God, either way it was superhuman!

“Then you may as well kill me now,” Harley declared with a sickening sneer. “Because if I can’t reverse what’s happening, I’d rather be dead. I need you to –”

At that moment, Alex managed to untangle himself from the line and tackle Harley from behind.

He growled and whirled around. “You’ve done nothing but screw up my life since the moment you showed up. You I can put an end to, now.”

Alex tried to get the jump with a karate chop to his neck but Harley grabbed his wrist and they both went down in the cockpit. Then Harley shoved him against the steel steering wheel, and holding it with one hand, began to beat his head against it with the other.

“You bastard!” Alex slammed him back with a fist to his face but it barely fazed him.

“Harley, stop it,” Charlie yelled. “I’m warning you. I’ll kill you if I have to.”

Good idea, Alex thought. Right now, it’s really him or me.

“Then you’re going to have to,” he responded, continuing.

“Works for me.” She aimed the spear gun and pulled the trigger. Harley raised his hand just in time for the spear to go straight through it.

He screamed and let go of Alex. As he was pulling the sharp metal out of his palm, without so much as a grimace of pain, Alex grabbed him and slammed him against the railing, then flipped him over the side. He then threw him a life jacket and quickly gunned the engine.

“Thanks for that,” he gave a hug to Charlie, who looked pale and shaken. “I really think he was planning to do me in.”

“Alex,” she said, “you stood up to super strength.”

“Well, with some badly needed help,” he said, passionately lashing the helm. “Now, though, let’s get that spinnaker up and go for it.”

“God, I don’t know how much more of this I can take.” She sank down in the cockpit for a moment, then rose and came over and leaned on him. “I feel like we’re in a screwed-up Indiana Jones flick.”

She impulsively kissed him on one bruised and throbbing cheek and then headed back below. Hey, he thought with hope, that kiss was about something.

DAY FOUR: Bonaire

Chapter Twenty-Five

August 9 Friday, 9:08 PM

Video Room, Gene-Tech facility

Rincon

“So that’s what it’s come to,” Cap Hunter said, shutting off the video projector. He’d been screening the day’s scrimmage for Buck Press, who had arrived at the video room after his abbreviated run-in with Harley Ryan. Cap was about to break the news that this was the final scrimmage. “They’re getting’ bloodthirsty—and every day it’s worse and worse. Half the time they don’t even bother to run the plays I call. They just hike the ball and then kick the shit out of each other.”

“Yeah, but you gotta admit they’re playing a whole new kind of football.” Press got up and headed over to the bottle of Jack Black on the sink to freshen his sour mash. “If you can do your job and get some discipline going, they’re gonna steamroll the entire damn league.”

“Buck, try on a little realism here. This whole experiment has gone to hell. Not to mention, Lamar’s helpful lady doctor ain’t helping shit. And now she’s disappeared. Didn’t show up today. Or maybe Harley’s had her kidnapped and beat up, same as I’m pretty sure he did with that kid Timmy.”

“Let me update you. I saw her this morning at her hotel and described the facts of life, but I’m beginning to think she’s in the process of bugging out on us. Lamar’s got some serious explaining to do about what he ain’t doing to help us. What I hear, the famous Dr. Russell was last seen over at a dive shop around noon getting ready to go scuba diving. Scuba diving, for Chrissake! But that probably was just to throw Harley off her trail. I think she’s probably sailed out of here by now with some tourist she’s took up with.”

“Look, Buck, I’m taking matters into my own hands. I’m getting my boys out of this place. Immediately. Maybe just being down here is causing this thing to go to hell the way it has. Maybe it’s something in the air. But whatever it is, I am closing this camp down tonight. Consider this your management notice. No more damned DNA experiments. I’m hoping that if we can get out of here, things might go back to normal. I’m scared, Buck. I don’t have a ball club any more. After what that prick Harley did, I have a mob of vicious . . . but hell, if I can get them back on familiar territory—and have Harley quit whatever the hell he’s doing—maybe, just maybe, they might remember who they are.”

“Now take it easy,” Press mumbled, “we’ve still got a couple of days to work this thing out. You’re just gonna mess up the schedule.”

“I tell you, it’s too late. We’ve got to pull these boys out of here immediately while I can still do anything with them. And I’m no longer even sure of that.”

“What you’re saying is, you’re just giving up,” Press huffed. “You don’t want to even give this experiment a chance. Do I have to remind you what’s at stake here?”

“I’ll tell you what’s at stake here,” Hunter declared, anger seething through his voice. “Harley and his whiz kid team have created physical monstrosities who are borderline insane and who we are about to turn loose on a football field against normal human beings. We could end up going to prison.”

“Whatever,” Press said. “It’s gonna happen whether you like it or not. Right now we’ve got no choice but to play the hand we’ve got. Okay, so this woman doctor who’s supposed to fix it bails. So I get on the horn to Lamar and tell him we need a damn Plan B.”

“Buck, Harley’s the problem. Maybe you haven’t noticed but he’s started having the same ‘episodes’ as the boys. He’s got so looney, he thinks he’s God. The thing I get is, he’s scared shitless that new woman’s gonna figure out exactly what he did to my boys. And since it’s something that’s obviously way over the line, I guess he’s got a right to be worried.”

“I do know he’s a delusional prick, but –”

“Okay, forget it,” Cap interjected. “Harley’s not one of my players. Just focus on this. Getting my boys out of here immediately is my current, non-negotiable objective. I don’t want to be an asshole and threaten to quit, but if that’s what it takes . . . put it like this—I’m out of here as soon as I can get packed. And if you want a season, then you’d better send your boys with me.”

“I don’t respond well to these kinds of conversations.”

“Well, you see, I didn’t know that. Maybe it’s because we never had to have one quite like this before. But for once, Buck, I ain’t asking, I’m telling.”

“Damn it all that it’s come to this, Cap.” He took another draught of sour mash. “You and me in a pissing match. You gotta know I got no choice. I gotta play these boys regardless of what shape they’re in. We can’t go canceling a season because we tried engaging in some undetectable doping and screwed it up.”

“Look, how about this?” Cap said. “We try and see if we can’t keep this Russell woman on the case, but we do it back in New York. Maybe there’s still a chance. Assuming she’s still alive and we can find her. Lamar seems to think she can fix this if anybody can. Maybe we should just forbid Harley to go anywhere near her.”

As that fond hope hung in the air, a bedraggled figure appeared in the doorway, staggering in from the hallway. He was soaking wet, his eyes wild, one hand bleeding.

“I need the Bell,” Harley yelled. “Now! Find the damn pilot, and sober him up.”

DAY FIVE: Curaçao

Chapter Twenty-Six

August 10 Saturday, 6:19 AM

At sea, Netherlands Antilles

A pastel patch of dawn had just begun to show in the East when Alex caught the first trace of Curaçao, a pinpoint of light above the chop that gave his spirits an immediate boost. Yes! It was the lighthouse at the southeastern tip of the island, called East Point. Nothing ever loomed so welcome. Past it, the coastline leading up to the capital at Willemstad turned into scenic, rustic overlooks, as well as half a dozen dazzling beaches, several well manicured.

The owner of Occam’s Razor was, as noted, a multi-millionaire entrepreneur named Wayne Kiefer. The prospect now of sailing her to Liberty Landing Marina in Jersey City as originally agreed was no longer tenable, since he wanted to accompany Charlize back to the safety of New York as soon as possible. So, he’d decided to just return the boat to Kiefer’s dock, with regrets.

Kiefer had been scheduled to be back late yesterday, so Alex was planning to call him this morning—with apologies for the early hour—to break the news he was going to have to find somebody else to deliver the Hunter.

Charlize had been below decks for most of the night, just occasionally coming up for some bracing salt wind on her face, obsessively working on her laptop, and he had to wonder if she was always like this: it was as though she’d never left grad school. She still had that youthful intensity and drive.

The wind had been a brisk twenty knots for the entire sail, and the whole voyage had been an exercise in perfection. He even overtook and passed a couple of inter-island freighters, glad his running lights, red and green, were in working order. He also had to keep an eye on the radar. Because of the big refineries on the northern tip of Bonaire, there were a lot of tugs and oil barges in the area, frequently poorly lit. Sailing between the islands after dark was definitely a heads-up game.

“Land ho,” he joyously shouted down to Charlie, hoping to improve her morning. The air was crisp and clear and he could all but smell the island shore.

She sprinted up the companionway wearing an expectant grin.

“Oh my God,” she declared, looking around. “We're going to catch the dawn. I almost never see it except when I think I’m onto something and pull an all-nighter. It's probably unspeakably beautiful down here.”

“How’s the –”

“Hey, thought you’d never ask. Perfect timing. I just this minute hacked all but the last of Harley’s encryptions.” She was beaming with pride as she brushed back her hair, then came over and kissed him on the mouth. A long time. Wow, he thought, was it her or was it Memorex. “It was so easy I almost think he’s too wired to pay any attention to the small stuff. Always a mistake. He just used an old routine I created and inverted it. Guess he never expected me to get within a mile of this data file.”

“That's great. Learned anything yet? Any paradigm-changing insights pop out?”

“Well, not much yet but I can tell you this. He’s been working with a lot of sections of DNA that nobody else has ever thought about before. Talk about uncharted territory, he’s been on another planet. Maybe by accident, but he’s included a lot of strands that involve neural functions, which may explain some of those scary side effects. But I just glanced at the study protocols. I can't wait to take apart what he actually did. I really do need the mother ship back at my lab. Also, I stumbled across something else that’s very puzzling. It was a list of some very large invoices.” She was clearly troubled by the finding. “It’s not actually stated if they’ve been paid yet. The names of the recipients are deeply encrypted and it was done through a dummy company so the Gene-Tech connection wouldn’t be obvious. That one I’m still working on.”

“Think it’s connected to the non-human DNA you said –?”

“If there are non-human DNA banks, I mean that sell as opposed to study, I sure as heck don’t know about it.” She wrinkled her brow to punctuate her misgivings. “But there were a lot of repeat buys. It was thousands and thousands of dollars.”

“Well,” he said glumly, “if we ever get back, maybe we can track them down and then all of this insanity can finally be explained.”

“Why don’t you look happier? It’s a terrific start.”

“That’s comparatively long-range thinking. I’ve been doing some short-range thinking. Or rather re-thinking. We’ve just done the obvious. We've sailed to the next closest island. It also happens to be the place where I picked up the boat and therefore could logically return it. I’m sure Harley or whoever else wants us dead has figured that out by now.”

“So what are you suggesting?” she asked, puzzled. “That we go to some other island?”

“Well, it's a little late for that. But we should part ways with this Hunter as soon as possible. It’s getting light enough that I can call Kiefer and make sure he’s back. I’m hoping he can help us sneak in to his dock.”

“God, I'm so sick of running.” She sighed and collapsed on the side of the cockpit. He flashed a fantasy of sailing with her forever. Just them. Every exotic port of call in the South Pacific. “But like I said,” she went on, “I can’t do much more on this laptop. I’ve got to get back to New York and get some time on the monster there at Downtown. Mainly I just need to –”

“Oh boy.” He was gazing past the stern and studying the horizon.

“What?” She turned to follow his stare.

He was pointing. “You see what I think I see?”

A tiny speck of light flickered at the juncture of sky and sea, like a rising star, in the direction they’d just come. He grabbed the binoculars.

“Looks like a searchlight,” he said, studying it. “Definitely a chopper. Guess Harley’s coming after us. But how did he get –?”

“I remember seeing a little Bell there behind the lab,” Charlize said. “Doubtless for the use of the likes of Buck Press and Lamar Nolan, the big shots. I heard they also had a pilot on call. There’s a real good chance that’s it.”

“Guess it’s time to start accelerating our plan,” he said, and immediately doused the red and green running lights and the light atop the mast. He was breaking some serious rules of the sea, and the thought troubled him. But they had a situation here.

“While you're doing that,” she said quickly, “I’m going to download the data file onto my laptop’s hard disk. A backup just in case he steals back the DVD. I didn’t want to do that till I’d cracked the encryption.” She headed down. “God, did I mention how sick I am of running.”

“It was noted. Same here. But as long as you’re down there, mind handing me up the sat phone? I’m hoping Kiefer’s back in town. He’s supposed to be. And I also hope he doesn't mind that I’m bugging out on what I contracted to do.”

He glanced back at the moving lights on the horizon. They were getting closer and they also were methodically crisscrossing, definitely in search mode.

That’s why it took them all night to get here, he thought wistfully. But it allowed us to outrun them.

Until now.

What’ll they do when they see us? he wondered. Try to blow us out of the water? Or maybe they won’t see us. Strike the sails, he decided, starting with the spinnaker. Then just motor like a bat out of . . .. There’s a much bigger chance of being seen than of being heard over the noise of the chopper’s turbos.

He quickly took Occam’s Razor momentarily into the wind and dropped the chute, then furled the jib and main.

Charlie was coming up with the phone.

“Let's just hope they don't spot us,” he said, intending to sound confident, “and try . . . God knows what. I’d like to deliver this baby in one piece. Kiefer has a house on Spanish Water bay, where I stayed, and a dock. We just need to get in there fast.”

“That means all hands on deck, right?”

“Actually we may need you at the nav-station down there by the stair, keeping an eye on the GPS and depth sonar. So why don‘t you get that file transfer started ASAP?”

“I’m gone,” she said briskly. And she was.

He surveyed the Hunter. He’d barely gotten to know her but he felt like he was about to say farewell to an old friend. A really great cruising boat, like this one, always had a distinct personality. After a few days and a couple of screw-ups, you figure out what it is. As with a child, you discovered the things it did readily on command and the things it resisted. In the second category, there was nothing you could take for granted.

He wanted to kiss the teak deck goodbye, but instead he clicked on the Globalstar.

*****

Harley was scanning with the spotlight though he didn’t really need it. Being enclosed in the darkened Bell cabin gave him extremely acute night vision. It was a 206 B-3 that seated five and was rated at over 200 km/hr.

When he’d appeared bleeding and soaked, demanding the Bell purportedly to bring back Charlize, Press was drunk and despairing enough that he agreed and even offered to come along. It was around midnight by the time they roused the drunken pilot, Ed Hart, a local American ex-pat, late of the Texas Air National Guard, and finally set out. They’d left from the landing pad behind the Gene-Tech lab and no flight plan had been filed. Harley reasoned the boat would continue in the direction it was originally headed, directly toward the sister island of Curaçao, so that’s the course he told Hart to take.

As Harley scanned, Hart was now slugging coffee from a thermos and trying to look like he didn’t have a hangover, while Press, in a primordial alcoholic haze, slumbered in the back.

Harley was still in super-strength mode, though he sure as hell didn’t want Buck Press to know that. Or how much trouble they all were in. The main thing now, he’d decided, was to make sure Charlie kept her mouth shut. It was clear she had no intention helping him. But she could sure as hell do him a lot of harm.

“Unless we missed them, they must have beat us here,” he was saying to the pilot, “but now they’ll have to ditch the boat somewhere. Got any obvious ideas?”

He hadn’t asked sooner because he’d expected to overtake them. But it turned out Archer was no slouch at the helm and must have made great time.

“Probably somewhere on the south coast,” Hart yelled over. “Which is where all the bays and marinas are. But there’s a shitload of them. Caracasbaai and Fort Beekenberg and Barbara. And what are we looking for? If he’s already dropped anchor or moored, then you gotta pick out this guy in the middle of a flotilla. So where exactly do we start?”

Good question, Harley mused. Did Buck Press think to ask where the yacht was moored when he had his people dig up the dish on Alex Archer? Maybe that’s where he’d go back. So where was it?

To find that out, he’d have to wake Press. Well, screw him. He reached back and gave him a vigorous shake

“What –?” He groggily opened one bloodshot eye, already ill tempered.

“Rise and shine, Cap’n. We’re there. So what else do you remember about this Archer guy? For instance, what marina was the yacht he came for moored in? My hunch is he’ll go back there, all else being equal.”

“Don’t remember.” Press rubbed at his eyes and shook his head. “I was looking into Archer or whatever his name, not . . .” He abruptly seemed to focus on the question. “Wait a minute! What the hell are you telling me? That you dragged me on some kind of frigging snipe hunt? That you don’t even know where he’s headed?”

Harley felt himself bristling in the dark, wanting to wring Press’s bony neck. The scary part was, he knew he could easily do it.

“Think, damit, you must remember something. Which side of the island? The name of a bay. Something. Just get me in the general vicinity and I’ll find the damned boat.”

Jesus, what a cock-up. Press was an alcoholic. It was shocking that he could even remember his own name half the time. And Archer was not going to sit around on the boat all day waiting to be located. They had to catch him now.

“Yeah, maybe there was something like that. A something something bay or some damned place. I could call my head security guy in New York. But I doubt if he’s in yet. Hell, nobody’s going to be in the office this time of night.”

“It’s morning, Buck.”

“Whatever. All I know is, it’s dark. Where the hell am I anyway?”

Harley told him. Then, still seething, he said, “Get on the phone now. Call your security man at home. We need the name of a marina.”

*****

Alex was clicking off the Globalstar. He thought it ironic that the signal had gone to outer space and back when Kiefer’s house was practically line of sight.

“Okay, we’ve got some serious navigation in our future,” he called down to Charlie, his voice tightening slightly. “Like I said, we’re headed into a bay called Spanish Water. Kiefer’s going to meet us at his dock. We’ll tie up there. There’re lots of boats moored in that area and he’s not thrilled about doing this without better light. Come to that, neither am I.”

“How far is it from where we are now?” She came up the companionway steps and poked her head out.

“Depends on what the GPS has to say.” He gave her the coordinates of the entry to the bay. “What do you read for our position now?”

She told him, then said, “And we’re currently making twenty knots, so . . .”

The computer at the nav-station instantly did the math.

“It says twenty-one minutes.”

“Good. Once we’re in, we’ve got to throttle the engine way back. I figure another five minutes. So let me give Kiefer a call back on that. And by the way, get ready for a surprise. I’m hoping for a lucky break on getting the hell out of here. But for the moment let’s just concentrate our mind on not running aground or ramming something expensive.”

*****

While Buck Press fiddled with the phone and cursed, Harley was scanning the anchored yachts at the edge of the Fort Beekenberg marina as the Bell cruised by. It was getting light in the east and he’d doused the searchlight. He could see just fine without it anyway. But nothing looked like the Hunter.

“Tell me what, exactly, you think we’re looking for,” Hart said.

“It’s single masted, white, about forty feet give or take. Look, let’s –”

“It’s me,” Press interrupted into the phone. A pause. “Yeah, I know what time it is. Well, I’m up and now you’re up. Earn your pay. Make me feel secure. And while you’re at it, talk to somebody here.”

A moment later Harley clicked off the phone. “He was picking up the boat for a guy named Kiefer, who has a place on the Spanish Water marina.”

“Shit,” the pilot said, “we flew kinda next to that area ten minutes ago. Didn’t notice anything moving down there.”

“I didn’t see anything either,” Harley concurred bitterly. “So give it the gas. Let’s go back and check it out end to frigging end. Boat by frigging boat. He’s probably already got a mooring there, so he won’t be drawing attention to himself.”

Hart was sharply banking the Bell for the turn. Dawn had broken out sudden and clear. There would be no more hiding in the darkness.

“You said you’ve already been on this boat?” Hart asked.

“Yeah,” Harley said forcefully. “I’ll know it when I see it.”

“The thing I’m not really clear on,” Press spoke up, “is what you’re planning to do once you find it.”

Good question, Harley thought. He wasn’t sure what he was going to do about Charlize once he got his hands on the twat. She claimed she’d already figured out what he’d done, so was she going to try to scare Lamar Nolan with a lot of loose speculation about “liability”? Or a lot of “ethics” crapola? When you were onto something this big, and you had to fast track it, corners were naturally going to be cut. So was she going to be down with that?

Carrot or stick? Maybe she could eventually be brought back into the fold if she could be convinced how monumental this . . .

Hello. Get real. Time was running out. Press was determined to hold the Wolverine pre-season, no matter what. And when that happened, Charlize couldn’t be allowed to screw things up. Whatever happened, the answer was obvious. She had to be gone.

“The thing about Charlie,” he lied, “maybe she can still be talked into helping out like Lamar Nolan sent her here to do. I just need to get her down from her high horse. You know, a little reality contact.”

“And how, exactly, do you plan to proceed doing that?” Press enquired skeptically. “From the looks of it, you haven’t exactly had a shit-load of luck so far.”

“Well, when I know the extent of the problem, then I’ll know the extent of the solution. Right now I’m still hoping she’ll cool off and get back on the team.”

There was no need to implant complications in the besotted mind of Buck Press. The story needed to be kept upbeat for as long as possible. The truth was, he was going to do whatever it took to impress on her that—

Shit, there at the distance was the Hunter, motoring through the Spanish Water moorings. How had he missed it before?

Charlie, you can’t screw with me any more. I’m on your ass.

*****

As they were carefully working their way past the sleeping yachts of Spanish Water, Alex remembered wistfully that he’d only just left Kiefer’s dock a short memory earlier, and here he was back. Not what you’d call progress.

“There’s something kind of perfect about boats in a marina in the morning,” he remarked, squinting as he throttled back. Their destination was a dock, not a mooring ball, and it was little more than fifty yards ahead. “Moments like this, it’s hard to believe that anything could ever go wrong again.”

“We’re closing in on the coordinates for the dock.” Charlize was monitoring the GPS, just to keep him honest.

The chopper had reappeared and was just visible off to the south, but he doubted they would see them. Actually maybe it was more a fond hope than a belief.

That’s when he saw a guy who had to be Kiefer standing on the dock, wearing sunglasses in the semi-light, and waving. He recognized him from photos in his house. Kiefer had one of those scraggly beards so favored in Hollywood, that Alex thought made a handsome man look like he’d been on a six-day bender. But he exuded comfortable-money cool without having the aura of the bored idle rich. It probably helped that he’d earned the sizable chunk of the fortune he obviously had by selling a software business he’d developed in Amsterdam or somewhere near there. Alex already liked the guy from just talking to him on the phone.

Now the chopper was coming toward them. Shit! They’d been made after all. There were suddenly going to be a lot of balls in the air.

He reversed the engine, slowing the boat to a crawl, and carefully eased them in. With a nervous owner watching, this was not the moment to crater into the dock. And happily they sidled up gently as Charlie tossed the bow line across to Kiefer. Alex put the engine in neutral and stepped onto the painted wooden dock and secured the stern while Charlie took care of the spring line.

Their host had still not uttered a word as he tied up the bow, a one-handed perfect figure-eight on the cleat. Finally, he gave them a smile.

“Thank God you made it. A chopper came through here a few minutes ago obviously looking for somebody. And now it seems like they’re headed back. Guess you weren’t making up all the cloak and dagger stuff. I want to get us all the heck off my dock before those assholes shoot at you and kill me.” He stepped forward. “Wayne Kiefer. Glad you made it, even though it’s gawdawful early.”

Alex formally introduced them. “And thanks for being a sport about this cock-up with the delivery.”

“Shit happens. Come on, let’s move before that whirlybird fires a Hellfire missile into my Hunter. Maria’s just made some coffee.”

DAY FIVE:

Netherlands Antilles

Chapter Twenty-Seven

August 10 Saturday, 7:13 AM

Spanish Water Marina, Curaçao

No sooner were they in the house than there was the roar of an engine hovering overhead.

“Uh-oh,” Kiefer said, and began pouring coffee into three Styrofoam containers. “This is gonna be takeout.”

They’d quickly unloaded their gear from the Hunter and were standing in a stainless steel and maple kitchen, black granite counters, floored with imported flagstone. Sliding glass doors looked out onto the dock and the boat. Alex had enjoyed the kitchen’s use immensely while he stayed there with Amy and her personal best friend Carol, making many a burger.

Before arriving, he had Googled Kiefer and learned that he’d been a major benefactor in buying and restoring several of the stately Eighteenth Century classic Dutch houses on the island. His own magisterial villa was new but it had a nautical theme, with gables and even an incongruous “widow’s walk” on the roof, a whimsical nod to older styles on Cape Cod.

“We need a serious troop withdrawal plan ASAP,” Charlize declared, taking a slug of coffee, then putting the lid on her cup, “because I’m not going back to Bonaire. No earthly way. No matter what Harley does or says. God, I feel so betrayed. He was once my best friend. Now he’s turned into some kind of obsessed . . . I don’t know. I’m sure he’s going to try to kill me the minute he gets a chance. Good sense tells me I should never be alone in the same room with him, ever again.”

The sound of the chopper was receding. Kiefer walked to the sliding glass doors, picked up a pair or 50 mm binoculars, and peered out.

“Looks like it’s a Bell. Commercial. No armament. Maybe they come in peace.”

“Don’t count on it,” Alex said. “Any chance of a quick lift to the airport?”

“We just need a plane to somewhere,” Charlize interjected. “Right now I’m not feeling overly picky.”

“Maybe I can do better than that,” Kiefer declared. It was the phrase Alex was waiting to hear. He knew for a fact that Kiefer had his own way to travel. That was his hoped-for surprise for Charlize.

“These guys are pissing me off, buzzing my house. So how’s this? The only place they can safely land is about a half a klick south of here, where the road widens. It’ll take a few minutes for them to actually get here. That’s our time window. Let me make a phone call and get Jacques over to the airport. So happens he gassed up after we got in yesterday.”

He went on to apologize for having a private jet. It belonged to his company, he explained, but he made sure the Netherlands government engaged in cost-sharing via various creative tax write-offs. The modesty of it all diminished somewhat when it turned out he was describing a Gulfstream IV-SP, which seated thirteen and had a range of 4,500 miles. Undoubtedly very handy, Alex mused, to take some close personal friends for a quick weekend getaway to the Caribbean if the term “seat-mile cost” wasn’t part of your worry array.

“It’s beginning to look like you need to be out of the Dutch ABC’s as soon as possible,” he declared. “Aruba and Bonaire and Curaçao are too small a world. We’ll shuttle you over to Caracas and you can grab a commercial flight out of there. That way nobody can trace where you’re going or when you’ll get there.”

“Going to Caracas ought to confuse matters adequately,” Alex agreed. “That would be quite neighborly of you.”

And, he thought, getting us out of the Dutch islands as quietly as possible also minimizes any local departure cock-ups. They had literally sneaked into Spanish Water without benefit of immigration formalities.

Kiefer was talking to his pilot and when he finished, he clicked off the phone and turned back. As though reading Alex’s thoughts, he continued.

“Don’t worry about all the usual customs and security BS. They know me and I just skip all that stuff. I’ll take care of everything. A case of single malt every now and then can simplify a lot of red tape in this part of the world.”

The sound of the helicopter was gone. Either they’d left or they’d landed up the road as Kiefer suggested. Definitely safer to assume the latter. Now Charlie found herself worrying whether Harley had brought some of those pistol-packing Gene-Tech guards with him this time.

“All right,” Kiefer said, grabbing his car keys, “we’re outta here.”

His Range Rover was parked in a garage directly off the kitchen. He hit a button to raise the door as they were piling in with their gear.

The snooping Bell was nowhere to be seen as they sped up the winding gravel road that would take them north to the airport. They were already farther inland here than Alex had ever been on Bonaire. It was green and lush and dotted with examples of classic Dutch island architecture. There still was no sign of the Nolan Pharma Bell. Maybe they had given Harley the slip.

But think a minute, Alex realized. If Harley Ryan could somehow track them to Kiefer’s dock, he was definitely going to figure out the one place they were sure to be headed next.

*****

“They’re gone,” Harley was saying. He was staring at Kiefer’s open garage door. Buck Press examined it groggily and didn’t seem surprised. Occam’s Razor was visible down by the dock, but nobody was home. “Okay, sooner or later they’re going to have to go to the airport. Guess we’d better be there to welcome them.”

“Unless he charters another boat and sails to frigging Aruba,” Press said. “Maybe he does the alphabet. You never can quite seem to catch up with this guy, can you, hotshot?”

Harley’s nighttime anger had transmuted into daytime despair. The only person he wanted to kill now was himself.

“They’re not going to sail out of here. They’re going to fly out. They may not try it today, but they will.”

Maybe, Harley thought momentarily, I should just try to go with them. This place is driving me insane.

*****

The section of the airport reserved for private craft was at the far end of the runway. Charlize and Alex flashed their passports as Kiefer schmoozed them past two sleepy officials in uniforms. The Gulfstream was prepped and ready. The pilot, Jacques, was a renegade French ex-pat with tattoos and an omnipresent Camel cigarette, heir to the late lamented Gauloise. Half the time he had nothing to do since Kiefer loved handling the controls himself.

The shot over to Caracas would be less than an hour. They wouldn’t have long to accommodate themselves to luxury.

“Thanks for doing this,” Alex said to Kiefer, again. “I’m sorry for getting you tangled in this mess.”

“Least I could do.”

He looked down the runway. “Uh-oh, Charlie, look. This just keeps getting worse.”

Harley Ryan, bandaged hand and all, was running down the tarmac.

“Charlie,” he yelled, “we’ve got to talk.”

She was at the top of the stairs, entering the cabin. “Harley,” she declared, turning back, “tell me one thing. Who were you paying all that money to? I mean, what was it for? What were you buying?”

“How do you know about that?” he paused, startled.

Alex had followed her up the steps. Now Harley was coming up after them.

“Let me explain,” he continued.

“Hang on, pal,” Kiefer said. He was standing next to the stairs. He reached up, grabbed Harley’s collar, and pulled him down. “I take it you’re the asshole who was buzzing my property just now. Don’t ever do that again.”

“I don’t know who you are,” Harley declared, turning around and regaining his balance, “so take your frigging hands off me.”

“I’m going to find out everything, Harley.” Charlie yelled down. “The next time I see you, you will have no secrets left.”

“Just let me come with you,” he pleaded. “We can work together.”

“And then I can be part of your disaster too. You’re even crazier than I thought.” She disappeared into the cabin.

Kiefer came up the steps and together he and Jacques pulled in the stairway, leaving Harley cursing on the tarmac.

As they were settling into their pick of brown leather seats, wide-screen TV on the bulkhead already playing, Charlie turned to Alex. “I have a horrifying feeling I know exactly what he’s done. It finally sank in last night. But to prove it I’ve got to track down the specific DNA he used. It’s . . . it’s something that’s never been done in the history of the world.”

“What?”

“You know what I’m thinking. But you’re like me, you just can’t admit it to yourself.”

BOOK TWO

DAY FIVE:

Netherlands Antilles

Chapter Twenty-Eight

August 10 Saturday, 7:13 AM

Spanish Water Marina, Curaçao

Three days later, the nightmare of Bonaire was becoming a hallucination from another time and place. But Charlize was already biting her nails and starting to look over her shoulder, terrified to think what could happen when Harley and the Wolverines got back to New York. Would he have some of the players stalk her down in the dark? He blew it in Bonaire, thanks to Alex, but the next time around he might get it right.

They’d caught American Airlines out of Caracas, then grabbed a cab at JFK. She made the first stop Downtown Manhattan. She talked over her options with Alex on the plane and decided the safest thing would be just to take her suitcase straight to her lab and get a cot to sleep on. Move in. She wanted to be around a lot of people, not to mention surrounded by a security staff. She also wanted to put her attempt to deconstruct Harley’s disaster on a crash basis.

For his part, Alex then headed for the Upper West Side to check on Amy. Previously he’d arranged for her to stay with her friend Carol till he got back with Kiefer’s boat, and now he decided it was probably best just to leave it that way. He didn't want her to be in the line of fire if somebody came to try and kill him, so he set it up with Carol’s mother, including pitching in on her room and board.

He took Amy and Carol out for pizza and then headed home—a two-bedroom pre-war rent-stabilized place in the West Eighties—since he’d decided he wasn’t going to let Harley Ryan drive him into exile.

Now, three days later, he’d put in his regular late-morning call to Joost to get his daily update on Tim. He was also looking for any news of what was going on with Harley and the Wolverines. Joost had finally managed to get a local judge to order Gene-Tech to give him access to the lab. But the investigation was synched to island time.

“Hey, mon.” Joost was truly excited. “Big news.”

“First things first. How’s the patient?”

“Docs say he healing jus’ fine. But that jus’ his bones. His mind, mon, that the problem. He refuse to talk.”

“Well, for God’s sake keep some security on him.”

“I told you, mon, big news. That about not to be needed. They leave today, mon, all of them. Maybe already in the air.”

He knew it was going to happen, but he wasn’t sure he was mentally prepared. Charlize had talked to Rachel and learned that Harley had returned from Curaçao a total mess mentally. He stayed away from the lab for a whole day and when he finally did come in, he was spewing venom toward everybody.

“Well, Joost, you’ve got your island back.”

“Damn straight, mon, and now the problem goin’ be yours.”

Alex thanked him for his sympathetic thoughts and hung up just as a call was coming in from Charlize.

“You’ve got to come down here.” She sounded uncharacteristically shook up. “Things are happening. I was in the reception area just now and a TV was carrying a promo on NY1. And guess what’s on at 2:00 PM?”

“Surprise me.”

“The Wolverines. They’re BAAAAACK. Live coverage from JFK. God help us.”

“Just heard that two seconds ago from Joost. So what now?”

“Should we each try and buy a gun?”

“I’ve actually got a couple,” he said, “but let’s see how it goes.”

“Wanna join me and watch our stalkers arrive?”

“I’ll pick up something for lunch.”

Strange, he thought. NY1 was a responsible city news operation—useful information vs. the blow-dried “if it bleeds, it leads” other local fare—sponsored by Time-Warner and they did a pretty decent job of covering local happenings during the day. He couldn’t remember the arrival of ball teams from training camp being typical material for local 24-hour news, but maybe it was just a slow news day.

“Is this whole thing about to go High Def?” She still was coming to terms with the alarming news the Wolverines were returning. “Does somebody really want this team to be seen up close, super-human bulging muscles and all, without the camouflage of pads and a uniform?”

“Guess we’re about to find out.”

On the way downtown he scored a couple of pastrami sandwiches and some half-sour pickles from Katz delicatessen on Houston Street.

The hospital covered two whole blocks and she had some prime research space, not to mention a huge room of lab equipment. When he arrived, she was deep in a tertiary-level analysis of Harley’s formerly-encrypted data files.

“He did splicing here, and here, and here,” she said, pointing at the computer screen and taking a bite of her pastrami after a hearty thanks. “I’ve figured out that much from his study protocols. I went through our genome files down at Penn and I compared this with the structure of the original wild DNA, trying to make sure I got all the differences. What you’re looking at now are areas of the genome that regulate certain kinds of hormone and protein production. That’s where he did a lot of his work.”

Alex had gotten the feeling that the lab was a whole different side of her—immaculate and filled with huge machines. Here she was in a place she owned, almost literally, and where she felt safe. She seemed a lot more comfortable than she had in Bonaire. She had two female grad students working in the next room, but this part of the lab was hers and this was where she had installed the cot where she was sleeping.

“So where do you think you go from here?” he asked.

She turned and bored in. “This is where you come in, amigo. I need you to watch my back while I try to track down the source of the DNA he’s been using.”

“I’ve cleared the decks,” he declared, hoping to sound upbeat. “I’m ready. But let’s first catch the Wolverine arrival on NY1. I want to see with my own eyes who may try to come for us.”

She went over and tuned in NY1. It wasn’t more than a couple of minutes before they were seeing a remote from JFK. The young female reporter, clipped dark hair and suit, was starting an interview with Buck Press.

He was in his TV publicity outfit, a white suit, and string tie.

“He looks like he came in third in a Colonel Sanders look-alike contest,” Alex observed. “You’d never guess in a million years what he’s been up to. . . .”

“I’m right proud of how these boys’ve been shaping up,” he was declaring. “Our head coach, Cap Hunter, has been trying out some new practice routines that’ve made a lot of difference in the kind of condition the boys are in.”

“Could you tell us where your training camp was this season? We understand that’s been a closely guarded secret up till now.”

“And that’s how it’s got to stay, little lady,” Press wagged his finger, a bit tired. “All I can tell you is, the boys got a real good tan.”

“He’s working on a ‘game face’,” Alex declared, studying the screen with a frown, “and having trouble managing it. He damn well knows this thing could blow up in his face. He’s got to.”

“And she knows she’s being bullshitted,” Charlize added in dismayed agreement. “But in her line of work I guess you get used to it.”

While Press continued with a lot of sports-owner boilerplate to fill the time, Charlize went back to bringing Alex up to date.

Then a mystery-name plane was pulling into view. Alex realized they were at a remote area of JFK airport used for charters. The Wolverines would be alighting on the tarmac, not into a terminal.

“Well,” he said, tension in his voice, “I guess we’re about to see what we’re up against.”

Cap Hunter was the first off, climbing down the temporary stairs with the diffidence normally ascribed to descending an icy ski slope. Buck was doing a voice-over narration, declaring Cap to be the finest coach in the history of modern stadium sports.

Then the team started descending the stairs. Seeing them, you almost had to be fearful whether the stairs would sustain their—what?—presence. Even without close-ups, you could see the ripples of muscles in their bulldog necks. At least Alex and Charlize could see them because they knew what to look for. Also, even though he couldn’t really make out their eyes, Alex thought he could detect a kind of wildness in their shifting gaze and body tension, the manner of quickly scoping out their environment. He flashed on a fantasy of Neanderthals entering a new territory and sizing up the terrain, like good hunters.

“I haven’t seen them all together like this until now,” Charlize said. “Is it my imagination or do they move in a menacing, aggressive way? Or maybe it’s how they relate to each other that’s scary?”

He agreed with her, though he didn’t want to tell her what it really reminded him of. They didn’t wave to anybody as they came down the stairs. Instead, they were focused, on the prowl, walking single file, a signal of pre-hunting behavior in certain predators such as wolves.

“They’re perfect athletic specimens,” he said, “but some part of what we think of as humanity has been overridden by something alien. Let’s just pray Harley doesn’t send these—whatever they are—after us.”

Buck Press refused to let NY1 interview any of them, again making Alex wonder what angle he had used to arrange for the press coverage. It turned out to be a non-event. Maybe, he suddenly thought, Press is planning some off-shore betting and hoped a glimpse of the formerly losing team in better shape would affect the point spread. So then he could make off-the-wall bets that didn’t seem so off-the-wall. Just looking at these guys, you knew they were in world-class condition but you didn’t know, really know, that they could kill with their bare hands. Hey, make it look close and then bet the ranch. That way it would pass the smell test.

That’s what this little TV snippet is about, he finally concluded. He’s gonna fake out the offshore sports book, clean up and get away with it.

When NY1 wrapped up the coverage and went to a commercial, Charlize snapped off the set.

“Notice Harley and Rachel didn’t get off the plane?” she said. “Either they flew commercial or they’re waiting till the cameras are off. Gene-Tech doesn’t want its name on this. At least not yet.”

Or maybe Harley’s already landed, Alex thought, in stalker mode.

“You said our next move was –”

“I need to get a sample of some of the actual non-human DNA Harley used and match it to the players’ altered strands. That’s the final proof I need before I shut him down. And I’ve got to do it before Harley gets wise to me and makes his sources disappear.”

“You said there were these dummy ID’s for his sources. Maybe –”

“The last things on Harley’s data file disk were the two encrypted suppliers of his non-human DNA. I guess he was really worried about anybody finding out his ‘smoking gun,’ because he encrypted them a whole different way.”

“I’ve got a feeling you’re going somewhere with this.”

“That’s the file I finally cracked. This very morning.” She grinned with satisfaction. “Hang onto your chapeau.”

When she pulled it up, he just stared at the screen. Wouldn’t you know it, the first address was right here in New York.

A heckuva town, the Bronx is up and the Battery’s down.

That one he kinda had figured.

DAY EIGHT: New York

Chapter Twenty-Nine

August 13 Tuesday, 3:41 PM

North of Manhattan

The address was off Pelham Parkway, near the botanical gardens. It was not an area of the five boroughs that was well known citywide, except for one feature. Which made chilling sense.

They’d Googled the name “Clarence Baines” before they left, but nothing stood out. They only got unhelpful noise, confusing references that didn’t fit. Certainly, nothing crosschecked with DNA or any other key word in genetics.

So, what was this character doing selling Harley Ryan genetic material? It felt spooky, like they were snooping into a drug deal.

If only it had ended up being that simple.

“Look,” Alex said finally, “let me just go up there and check out what’s at that address. How hard can that be? It’s probably a parking lot.”

“No, I want to go with you.” She glanced at her computer screen and shrugged. “In case this pans out. I’m not sure any of my sleuthing here can be used anyway. It’s too late now. The clock has run out. The first game is Sunday. But I still want to nail Harley.”

“Okay,” he nodded reluctantly, “but let’s not be naïve. The boys are back in town. Once we’re outside, you’re exposed. That’s why I was thinking of a solo run. I propose we at least use a back exit if there’s one that makes any sense.”

“We can just go around to the ER entrance and get lost in the confusion. The last time I appeared on the front steps of Downtown Manhattan, I ended up in Bonaire the next day with people trying to kill me.”

They wove their way through gurneys and blue and white ambulances and caught a cab being vacated by a young Mexican in greasy restaurant attire who had badly cut his left hand. Probably, Alex thought, a beginning sous chef apprentice in some posh new Tribeca eatery who needed more chopping practice. No health insurance, naturally, so they write down the address of this ER and hand him cab fare.

There were smears of blood on the seat. Alex fleetingly thought he was glad it wasn’t his.

“I don’t know what to expect out of this trip,” Charlie declared, “but I’m definitely gonna nail Harley’s ass to the wall—if he doesn’t kill me first.”

He asked the cabbie, a friendly Haitian, to take them up the West Side Highway so they could take in the dazzle of new high-rises on both sides of the Hudson, the new “Gold Coast.” As they sped past the Seventy-Ninth Street boat basin, he was having an unpleasant chain of thought.

“You know, if Harley suspects by now that you’ve stolen his files and cracked his encryption, then he would be expecting us to do exactly what we’re doing. His first order of business today might be to make sure his source tells no tales.”

“Unless he’s already arranged for it long distance.”

“Could be, but I think he’s pretty much on his own.”

“Let’s burn a candle and assume that,” she said wistfully. Then, “Alex, do you know whether the Wolverines’ first game is in the daytime or at night?”

“As it happens, I don’t have the foggiest. But I’m kinda thinking it’s at night. Here in New York.”

“Well,” she declared, “we’d better find out, pronto. This train is leaving the station. Is it a ‘bullet train,’ or a train wreck?”

The Bronx address meant taking Fordham Road past the university of that name and then through the Bronx Botanical Gardens. They actually could have taken the Number 2, but the cab seemed safer.

Passing through the Botanical Gardens was always fun. Coming out the other side is not. That area is basic low-rise Bronx punctuated with new high-rises popping up more and more. An architectural mixed bag, old and new, tall and low, and all side-by-side.

The address turned out to be an actual house. It was a Victorian-style two-story, set back from the street, a place of weathered wood with the remnants of a ramshackle porch. Very out of place, but it was the kind of idiosyncratic structure you could build in an earlier era and nobody could say you nay.

The more Alex looked at it, the more foreboding it became. If it were on a lonely hillside, anybody could have thought it haunted. But here it was, on a busy parkway, totally out of place, with rickety front steps and an incongruous front “yard” full of weeds and trash.

They almost asked the cabbie to wait, since this looked like a truly dead-end proposition.

“Alex, maybe this guy wants it to look like this. Just to scare people off.”

“Right. Maybe he’s a gun nut brewing moonshine. He’s doing a good job of scaring me off.”

“This sure as hell does not compute,” she declared, staring. “I can’t believe DNA shipments came from here.”

He tried to imagine weird medical experiments going on behind the weathered gray clapboard. It could be like some kind of Gothic horror story. The whole image was Transylvanian and yet modern traffic was whizzing by behind them.

There was no sign of life as they walked up the steps, carefully testing each in advance, but Alex had a troubling premonition they were being watched, the kind of sixth-sense he got from being in the wild a lot.

The door had a rusted iron clapper in the shape of a lion’s head. Charlize gingerly gave it a double whack. The sound echoed ominously through the void behind it.

When nothing happened, she waited a few seconds, and then whacked it again.

“Hello. Anybody home?”

After another long interval of silence, there came the urban ritual of locks being unshackled and finally the door creaked open.

Out of the dark that greeted them, “Who the hell are you?”

When he stepped forward, glowering, they were confronted with an ancient, eccentric-looking miscreant with a towering mane of white hair and brown-stained teeth. Maybe, Alex thought, the moonshiner fantasy wasn’t so off the wall.

The hallway behind him was pitch dark and deathly quiet.

“Mr. Baines,” he said, “do you have a moment? We have a couple of questions if you –”

“And to repeat myself, who, pray tell, the hell are you?”

“We work for Gene-Tech,” Charlize interjected. “You are Clarence Baines, correct?”

“Then maybe you’ve come to finally pay me. Dare I frigging hope?” He didn’t move from blocking the door.

“We’re here to talk about that,” Charlize said, recovering.

“When I see the cash, then we can talk. I did every damn thing you asked me, and believe me it wasn’t easy.”

Alex shot a glance at Charlie. He didn’t know where to go with this and he’d decided to let her do the talking. They clearly had found the right guy, except he wasn’t in a conversational mood. Instead, he was menacing.

“Okay,” she said, “first things first. Can we come in for a moment?”

“No way, sister.”

“It’s Dr. Russell, by the way, and this is –”

“Save your breath.” He did not volunteer confirmation of his name or accept her proffered hand.

“Right,” she said, smoothly retracting, “maybe we’re not getting off to a great intro here. Let’s try to start over. How much, exactly, do we—does Gene-Tech owe you?”

“You know very well. That’d be a hundred and forty-eighth thousand smackers, not counting interest for being overdue.”

What, Alex wondered, did this murderous old codger have a hundred and forty-eight thousand dollars worth of?

“I’ll see what I can do about getting you paid,” she said. “But I’ll need some kind of proof of delivery. Maybe I could take a look at the invoices. I just need to be sure I’m talking to the right person.”

Alex sort of lost track of the conversation at that moment because he was seeing something behind Baines.

Christ! He stifled a gasp.

It was watching them, motionless, carefully blending in with the dark, only its eyes showing the occasional glint of reflected sunshine off a passing car in the street. The rest of it was coal black. Then he heard the sound he would have expected. Thump. Thump. Thump. That would be the three-foot tail, symbolically sort of licking its chops.

Finally, he started making it out. My God, it was real all right.

Tiny ears erect, smooth muzzle and whiskers. It appeared fully-grown, which would make it five feet long and maybe 150 or even 200 pounds if it were a male, which he assumed this to be. Sub-specie can be found all the way from Southern Africa to the Kamchatka Peninsula of Russia. This was not your basic starter house-pet. Zookeepers do not mingle with them in a cage. Their powerful jaws can easily put a tooth through your skull before you could say Panthera pardus.

One hell of a house-cat. He’d never heard of anyone ever keeping one in the living room. Leopards lived in a world of night and secrecy. Alone.

Surely, Charlize didn’t know it was there, he realized, or she would have freaked. All of a sudden, the last thing he wanted to do was enter the premises for a chat.

“Uh, did you by any chance borrow something from the Bronx Zoo that you forgot to give back?” he finally asked, when he regained his breath.

“Oh, you mean Ogun,” Baines said, glancing back. “They were going to put him to sleep, because of a problem he had, so I snuck him out.”

“Oh my God!” Charlize finally saw the leopard, gasped, and stepped back.

“What ‘problem’?” Alex asked.

“Well, seems he attacked one of the keepers who was feeding him. After that, nobody goes in the cages now. It was kind of a food review.” He grinned, the first sign of humanity. “Seems he sent back the scrawny chicken and decided to just eat the server instead.”

“Who’s ‘they’?” Charlize asked when she found her voice at last. “Do you work at the –?”

“Not any more,” he said. “Though sometimes I do a bit of freelance when nobody there can handle something with the Big Cats.”

Hey, Alex thought, Baines is an animal behaviorist, like me, except he’s domesticated (hopefully, God help us) a fully-grown black leopard with a taste for human flesh. This guy is no amateur.

“And someone from Gene-Tech came to you?” Charlize asked. “But why?”

“You’re acting like you don’t know anything about this,” he declared with contempt. “You don’t fool me. Now what about my money?”

“You know,” she said, “before we get to that, I’d really like to know exactly what we’re paying for. I’ll want to see some invoices, some samples, something.”

Behind Baines, the black leopard stirred, then put its front paws forward, and stretched. It was body language that announced he was comfortable with what was going on. Alex felt his own pulse diminish. The cat wasn’t measuring them as a late lunch. Maybe he’d just been fed.

“You want a sample?” he groused. Then he turned and walked back to the big kitty and stroked its head playfully. The leopard acknowledged the action with a coy twist of its neck, welcoming the familiarity. Next Baines disappeared into the darkness, leaving nothing between them and the leopard.

Shit. Alex tried not to stiffen.

They were staring down a primal hunter who could easily kill them both in two seconds. Alex had fixed its gaze, though his “fight or flight” instinct was to close the door as quickly as possible. But he thought better of anything that involved motion. Any move they made now could easily be misinterpreted. Jesus, did the neighbors know about this? Baines probably didn’t get harassed a lot by Jehovah’s Witnesses.

He was returning now with a white envelope. Another absent pat on Ogun’s muzzle and then he walked up and handed it to Charlize.

“You want to check out a sample. Be my guest. Now don’t come back till you’ve got the cash.”

He slammed the door, followed by the sounds of multiple locks. Which, Alex thought absently, he sure as heck didn’t need. Anybody who broke in there would be an hors d’oeuvre ten seconds later.

Charlize was looking into the envelope, which had a layer of white collecting on one corner. She reached in and pulled out a frost-covered vial. When she wiped away the moisture, it was a deep red liquid, frozen solid.

“He’s keeping it in liquid nitrogen,” she said. “Blood. The only next best carriers of accessible DNA are saliva and semen.”

“Guess we both now know a heck of a lot more than Harley wanted us to,” he ventured finally. “Think Harley will ever pay this guy?”

“I think it’s just as likely Harley will send somebody to shut him up, permanently,” she declared. “Loose lips etc. could sink Gene-Tech. Maybe we ought to warn him before we go.”

“Somehow, I feel Harley is the one who should be warned,” he said. “Come on, let’s try to get a cab. And on the way back downtown, maybe you can explain in small words how this works.”

“I don’t know what animal’s blood is in this vial,” she said. “This guy has the run of the zoo. Anytime he makes an excuse to sedate an animal, he can come away with blood. And the other payment address is in San Diego. Harley must have found somebody out there too. Pop quiz, what is San Diego famous for?”

“Let me think.”

“I’ve got a lot of work to do, but at least now I know what I’m looking for. Jesus, if Lamar Nolan knew what Harley has done, he’d have a heart attack. Hello Frankenstein. Word of this gets out and a billion-dollar company evaporates.”

DAY EIGHT: New York

Chapter Thirty

August 13 Tuesday, 4:57 PM

West Street, headed south

They were speeding back down the West Side, still in shock. Over the river, the wide sky above New Jersey was starting to roil and cloud up, ominous. It matched their mind state. With a sample of the animal blood—this vial presumably leopard—that Harley had been purchasing for his clinical trials, Charlie felt she finally had a way to crosscheck with player DNA and nail what he was doing. If that clicked, then it would confirm they were dealing with something entirely new in human experience. But that was what she’d suspected since Bonaire.

“My God,” she was saying as she squinted dolefully at the sky, “it could be he’s vectored in genes from half the Bronx Zoo and created a genetic replica of a pack of hybrid hunting predators, a blend of God knows how many different species.” She turned, grasping the vial of frozen blood. “Alex, I’m finally getting my mind around this. No way can I reverse it before the game. The only thing left for us is to figure out how to manage who, or what, they are now.”

“Well, it’s damned scary. Right now it’d be really helpful to know what specific species we’re up against.”

“I have an idea about that. But let me think it through first.”

Before long, they were pulling back into the driveway of Downtown Manhattan Hospital.

“We’re going to the Emergency Room,” she told the driver. “Please go left there, around to the back.”

She marched them through security and up the elevator to her lab. He could tell she was whetting to begin an analysis on the blood sample. After all, Baines didn’t actually identify the source.

How would she do it, he wondered. Presumably, she’d need an animal DNA database.

She was about to swipe her card in the door reader when she froze and pointed silently. The door was cracked open, with a dim glow from somewhere in the back of the lab.

“Deirdre never leaves the door unlocked,” she whispered. “Something’s wrong.”

It’s got to be Harley, Alex flashed, and all the worse since he’s been waiting in the dark and may be having “side effects.”

“Let me go first,” she whispered. “We both know who it is. I can talk to him.”

She gingerly inserted her hand through the crack in the door and felt for the light switch. When she couldn’t reach it, she edged the door wider. Sure enough, the glow was from a computer screen in the back.

As she stepped in, she heard a growl and felt an arm lock around her neck. While she stifled a scream, Alex dove and peeled Harley’s arm away. When Harley yelped, he planted an elbow in his teeth. Harley stumbled backward, tripped over a chair, and crashed onto the floor.

There was another sub-human growl as he pulled himself up. Alex locked eyes with him and something about those eyes was reminiscent of that black leopard he’d just seen.

When Harley took a wild swing, Alex ducked and deflected it, then grabbed a chair and aimed the legs at him the way a lion tamer would. It had the intended effect of disorienting him and causing him to back off.

“Harley, what the hell are you doing here digging around in my computer?” Charlize demanded, more angry than scared.

“Just checking on your software. I’ll be doing some work here.”

“You, working here!” She flipped on the lights and stared at him. He was disheveled and had an odd twitch. “What are you high on? I’ve just confirmed my darkest suspicions about what you’re up to. No way in hell are you going to continue your DNA obscenities in my lab.”

“Charlie,” he barked, “you’re not telling me what to do. I’m telling you. The DNA I introduced is only going to express as long as receptor tissue maintains it. Right now I need to monitor the current level of expression.”

“Then use your own damned lab in New Jersey.”

He’d begun prowling her space as though doing inventory, reminding Alex once more of that leopard in the Bronx. There was the eerie sense that he might pounce on something at any moment. He exuded danger.

We’ve got to get him out of here, Alex thought. Before he reverts to something we can’t handle. He could turn life-threatening any moment now.

“New Jersey doesn’t have the facilities I had in Bonaire. I need to work here. If I can’t, everything I’ve achieved might come undone.”

“Harley, given what I’ve just confirmed, that’s by far the best thing that could happen. The way they are now, if these . . . creations of yours are actually turned loose on a field at night, God knows . . .. Remember what they did to the wild donkeys of Bonaire. Or maybe you don’t. Maybe you were out there at night doing it too and don’t remember.”

She was picking up the phone and dialing. “Give me Security. Now.”

He bristled. “I’m not going to let you screw up my work.” Then he headed for the door, shielding his eyes from the light as he loped out and disappeared.

She put down the phone.

“Alex, I need you to stick around. I don’t want to be here alone. The next time he comes . . . who knows?”

DAY EIGHT: New York

Chapter Thirty-One

August 13 Tuesday, 8:58 PM

Downtown Manhattan Hospital

After her nerves settled down and she got used to the odd odor Harley had left in her lab, Charlize immediately went to work on the blood sample from the Bronx. She analyzed some critical DNA strands and half an hour later she had reached two conclusions. Though she still had no proof of where the blood came from, it definitely was not human. Also, some of the DNA components matched some of the mysterious splices in the Wolverine players’ blood.

Do the math.

“God, I can no longer even kid myself that I’m imagining this,” she declared, coming over and mournfully leaning her head against Alex’s shoulder. “It’s horrendous. This gets out and gene therapy will probably be criminalized. He’ll take us all down with him. The patients I’m on the verge of curing of muscular dystrophy could be doomed.”

“Right now the game’s the thing,” he said. “If we can get past that . . . You know, Harley seemed concerned his . . . modifications would wear off. Maybe they’ll start returning to normal, right?”

“Well, nobody’s ever done what he did, but I’d say that’s hopefully what will happen. Eventually. As cells get renewed.”

Even so, there was plenty of worry in her voice.

“Then we’ll just have to work this game by game. For the first one, we’ve got just days to come up with a containment plan. And like I said, knowing the species he used would be an enormous help. Every species has different social rules. Are they territorial? Do the males compete and fight for dominance? What’s the strategy of the hunt? If you know that kind of stuff, you may know how to fake them out.”

“I’ll tell you what I was thinking. There’s an institute up in Cambridge, Mass. that’s been cataloging the genome of a number of endangered species, specializing on large mammals in zoos—tigers, Yellowstone wolves, Mountain gorillas, whatever—that are threatened or someday might be. If I could get them to let me do a search for ‘trait genes’ in their database, then I could try to look for matches with Harley’s splices.”

“Trait genes?”

“Yeah. They’re genes that are in long stretches of DNA called ‘haplotype blocks’. They govern behavior.”

“What are the chances of doing that?” He was trying not to get his hopes up.

“I’d have to pull strings.”

She was reaching for the phone when it suddenly rang. She looked at the I.D. It was coming from a satellite phone. There was only one caller that could be.

“I really don’t need this,” she said with a frown, angrily picking up the handset.

“How long have you been back from Bonaire?” came the basso timbre of Lamar Nolan.

She told him.

“You should have checked in with my office. I need to be kept up to date on this project. Buck Press says you didn’t do a thing to help and then you bailed. I think I pay you enough to be told what’s going on.”

“It actually took me a while to figure out what’s going on.” She found herself wondering if Lamar Nolan had any idea about the route Harley had taken to get his incredible performances. “I’ll tell you one thing right now. Harley’s project has got to be buried for good. Like it never happened. And the sooner the better. Preferably yesterday.”

“I think we need to talk about this . . . situation, but not over an open phone line. I’m –”

“Right now it’s better if we don’t talk,” she interjected. “If I were you, I’d be looking for some plausible deniability. I know things you probably shouldn’t.”

“I doubt that.” This time a microsecond pause, as though he was searching for a tone and not finding it. “I’m in the air right now, headed out of the country, but I want to see you the minute I’m back stateside.”

He clicked off without further pleasantries.

“Alex,” she said, “We’re gonna try to save Lamar Nolan’s ass, and apparently he doesn’t even know it.”

“And you were just about to pull some strings.”

“Right. Thanks. There’s always somebody there at the Cambridge lab. This time of day, it’ll probably just be grad students. I know several of them; one even had a summer job with me last year. My thinking is, we don’t want to go through any more official channels than we have to. I just need a backdoor into their database for a few hours to see what they have in the way of trait data that we could use.”

She paused, then, “So what’s your take?”

He took a deep breath.

“I’d say the first thing would be to use whatever you can find out to come up with a way to contain them, keep them on the field and out of the stands. Then next would be to challenge them psychologically, impair their confidence and ability to work together. To do that, we need to know how they feel about things like personal space, i.e., how do they signal an intruder that their allowable perimeter has been breached, etc. Do they charge or do they just bluff and threaten. Without knowing what you may turn up, I’d guess we should be thinking about hunters who are fast on their feet, which would take us toward, probably, wolves and coyotes, who also hunt in packs, so cooperation is important. Add in the Big Cats and we might have a start. Anyway, I’ll use those assumptions to start thinking about control and containment.”

“All right,” she said, “sounds like the beginning of a plan. I’ll try to reach the people at Cambridge, and then I’m going to whip up a program to pull the strand data out of Harley’s database to make comparisons with what they have. This is gonna be an all-nighter.”

“In which case,” Alex said with a worried frown, “I suggest we securely lock the door.”

DAY NINE: New York

Chapter Thirty-Two

August 14 Wednesday, 6:33 PM

Wolverine Stadium,

Downtown Manhattan Hospital

The way Coach Cap Hunter saw it, the opening exhibition game with Seattle was shaping up as a gut-wrenching paradox. The Wolverines had the best shot they’d ever had and yet he was worried stiff. He knew, with an undertow of despair, that he was sitting on a guided missile he no longer guided.

Looked at one way, he had the enviable problem of deciding between a murderous ground game or turning Dutch Mathis loose with the long ball. Dutch could now throw length of the field and their once and future star receiver Bobby Rath could pirouette eight feet into the air to catch it like a dog snatching a Frisbee. Similarly, their running game was a harnessing of pure power, using a closely spaced, double tight-end formation, reminiscent of a Roman Legion, that moved like a phalanx protecting the ball carrier.

The other side of the paradox was, that much power couldn’t really be controlled. In the heat of battle, they would just do whatever they wanted. And if something provocative happened and the hostile, murderous side effects kicked in, he couldn’t even imagine the disaster that could follow. It was truly frightening to live in the shadow of that kind of catastrophe.

Also, there seemed to be another problem brewing. A week ago Dr. Wu, who handled Harley’s grunt work, had started taking daily blood samples of the players in the trial. Had some new complication come up? This very morning she’d come over from Jersey to take blood. She showed up in the locker room at nine sharp with a white Styrofoam container of vials, to take samples just after taping and just before they all went charging out onto the field for the morning’s practice.

After she’d finished and the locker room had emptied out, he’d drawn her aside.

“We need to have a little chat, Dr. Wu.” He loved putting a sarcastic reading on her title. This crowd of young geniuses who had screwed up his players were all hotshot “doctors”. Made you wonder about the usefulness of “higher education”. “I notice you’ve started taking blood every day. Care to tell me what that’s about?”

At first, she’d just glared at him. The stormy morning of that horrible scrimmage down in Bonaire, when he attacked Harley, had severely hardened the lines on both sides.

“Nothing in our contract says we have to share clinical data with you.” If anything, she’d raised the bar on the offensive, haughty snap-back.

“Well, then let me ‘share’ some information with you. Maybe I’m imagining it, but recently the boys seem to be losing a tad of their edge, their performance. So what are these blood tests, that you’re so uptight about, telling you about that?”

She looked alarmed. “What do you mean, ‘losing their performance’?”

“It’s just kind of a feeling I’m gettin’. Sometimes they don’t seem to be quite so good at pulling energy out of nowhere like they used to. And once in a while now somebody complains of muscle pain, which I hadn’t heard anything about in quite a while.”

“Shit,” Rachel said, her face freezing, “I’m glad you told me.”

“Why?”

Then she tried a smile. “Because I can assure you it’s nothing to worry about.”

Whereupon she gave him what he considered a bunch of gold-plated horse manure about “a stabilization phase.” Then she grabbed the container of blood vials and seemed to be in a significant hurry to leave. “So just let me know if you notice anything more specific.”

Who knew, he thought. Maybe he was just imagining most of it. Anyway, that wasn’t the real problem. It was the damned aggression.

Bobby Rath claimed his was intensifying, which scared him a lot. How soon before he blew his top over something minor and killed somebody? The worry was even stronger for Tiny Bledsoe, the lineman who reminded you of a high-end refrigerator. He was the designer appliance, the Sub-Zero, of football.

“Coach,” he’d said on the plane, “I don’t feel like myself. And it’s getting worse. That idiot Harley gave us some shots in the neck the other morning down in Bonaire and the next thing I knew I wanted to kill him. Something came over me. Now half the people I see I want to kill. I’m no longer sure what I’ll do in the game. I’m even worried about workouts. The way everybody is getting, we’re going to have some bad injuries soon.”

“Full-contact scrimmages are over,” Cap had declared. “It’s pointless to try to run plays. You guys just do whatever you want to anyway.”

Right now, his major concern was trying to maintain what little authority he had left over the players. And since Harley and Rachel seemed oblivious to his problem, he got the phone number for Charlize’s Downtown lab from Rachel and called her after the day’s workout, desperate for some help.

*****

Downtown: The time was around six-thirty and Alex was still there when the call came in. Charlize was working with data from the massive high-speed transfer she’d done overnight from the research center in Cambridge. By lucky chance, the lab there had carried out a lot of DNA deconstructing for endangered leopard sub-species around the world. She’d started with their database of “trait” DNA of a variety of the endangered North African leopard, whose “black panther” (slang for a leopard whose recessive gene for black fur had emerged) representative they’d seen in the Bronx. She searched on the “territorial” genes, and then ran those against those sites in the players’ DNA. BANG, several matched.

“Alex, you had a good hunch.” Her satisfied tone was pre-announcing a minor triumph. “They’re territorial as hell. Come and look at this.”

She showed him the main strand of DNA that the Cambridge consortium had identified as governing territorial behavior in the Panthera pardus. All the players had the identical strand. She assumed it had been implanted with a viral vector.

“You win a T-shirt,” he smiled. “I’ve been thinking about that and I’ve got a crazy counter-programming idea. Now I’ll get serious about it. Keep up the good work.”

“This Cambridge stuff is a Godsend.” She was still glowing with success.

“See if you can find any pack behavior. Ditto nocturnal hunting. The funny thing is, I would think that things like territoriality and bad tempers are there because Harley screwed up. They don’t make you stronger or faster. I think they got in by mistake. They’re not ‘side effects.’ He just used DNA he shouldn’t have inserted. Maybe he was in too big of a hurry.”

She was agreeing with him when her phone rang`.

“Dr. Russell, I’m sorry to bother you but I’m worried as hell. I’ve about lost all control of these boys. Harley ain’t doing shit about it and between you and me I think he’s starting to look a little like a werewolf. I don’t have a clue what that’s about. And now this Dr. Wu has started in collecting blood samples for some reason she won’t tell me. But that’s not my main worry. I was just wondering if you could prescribe some kind of real strong sedative in case some of these boys blow up in the middle of the game Sunday. Tranquilizers, you know. Maybe even get a couple of those guns like they use on bears or whatever?”

“I don’t do tranquilizer prescriptions,” she told him. “I’m not that kind of doctor.”

“Well, you got any ideas. Cause we could be looking at some real shit.”

You have no concept, Charlize thought.

“Alex and I are trying out some ideas for keeping this under control, but we need to see the stadium.”

“That’s your sailor friend from Bonaire I heard about?”

“Right. We’ve been trying to think this thing through.”

“So where is this ‘thinking’ taking you?” he asked, betraying a note of skepticism.

“Not over the phone,” she said. “Let me just say I’m closing in on what specifically Harley has done.”

“Want to tell me about it?”

“We’ll get to it later. But for now, a quick question. I heard that the game is scheduled for six o’clock. Is that right?”

“There’s pre-game stuff starting at six o’clock, but the actual kickoff is not till sometime well after seven.”

They both knew what that meant. The team would be playing deep into the dark.

“I think it would be a good idea if we came up there tomorrow evening,” Charlize said, trying not to betray how worried she was. “We both want to see the field with the lights on, and by then I should know a lot more than I do now.”

“Yeah, these boys’ve never played under lights since Harley got hold of them. That scares me too and I’m working on some back-up precautions. So come on up. After seven they’ll all be back at the hotel and zipped up.”

“Perfect,” she said. “Let’s shoot for eight. Then they swapped cell numbers and she clicked off.

“Well,” she reflected grimly, “by now Cap knows enough to keep them out of the dark. If there’s some drug or way to moderate nocturnal behavior in big predators, I’ve certainly never heard of it.”

“Which brings us to this territorial thing. I’m working on a way to use it to control them. Maybe if they feel territorial about one space, then they have to concede that any area that is not in that space is not their territory and think twice about invading it.”

“Where are you headed with this?”

“Containment,” he said with force. “Whatever happens on the field cannot be allowed to spread off the field. So the worst case is they only kill each other. What happens in Vegas has gotta stay in Vegas.”

“So how do you do that?”

“I’m working on an idea. But I don’t think Cap is gonna be thrilled.”

“Then we don’t tell him.”

“When we do it, he’s gonna know. Trust me.”

DAY TEN: New York

Chapter Thirty-Three

August 15 Thursday, 8:59 PM

Wolverine Stadium, The Bronx

“It’s gonna be brighter when I’m through,” Coach Hunter said. He and Charlize and Alex were standing in midfield, at the 50-yard line. He’d talked to the maintenance people on his walkie-talkie and had the lights turned on. The dull green FieldTurf was now a glistening, verdant lawn and Alex was making mental notes of the stadium layout.

Outside, the Bronx evening had turned black. Hunter was explaining that he was planning to supplement the stadium lights with a vast battery of new 400-watt High Pressure Sodium floodlights, just to be on the safe side.

“I talked to Buck,” he said, “but I don’t think I got through to him, so I just went ahead and arranged for a lighting contractor.”

Alex was thinking. Powerful lights, as the phrase in math goes, were “necessary” but not “sufficient.” The minute anybody in the stadium—on or off the field—showed “prey” behavior, tried to flee, the altered players could well have a powerful instinctive impulse to pursue them and bring them down. The one thing you never do with a big carnivore is look like you’re afraid. And if this thing blew, there was going to be fear all over the place.

“Just make sure the wiring and circuit breakers are rated for whatever extra new load you plan to install,” Alex noted, already looking for problems.

“That’s why I’m paying these electricians so damn much money. Let them worry about it.”

Alex Archer was not entirely reassured by this information. He once had some highly-paid electricians install a pair of identical circuit breakers to split a spotlight load, and end up sending 300 watts through one and 3000 watts through the other, because they weren’t the geniuses they thought they were and got some wires mixed up. Fortunately, the only thing that got blown to bits was the over-stressed circuit breaker. This time, however, a lot more was at stake if the “experts” screwed up. They could accidentally create a hunting ground for hormone-driven killers. Time to measure twice and cut once.

Now Cap began to ramble, his voice a blend of sorrow and anger.

“Damn it, Buck’s to blame for this. He hired that fool Harley to destroy my boys. How’m I supposed to coach a team that don’t even listen to me or to any of my staff?”

“What do they, the players, think is going on?” Charlize asked.

“Well, they knew their DNA was going to be at issue. Some legal gobbledygook about that was put in the waiver they all had to sign. Back then they all could read. Now, I’m not even sure. It’s as if they’ve regressed to cave men, or even ape-men. In lucid moments, which are pretty few and far between by now, they tell me they’re scared shitless about what they may accidentally do next Sunday.” He bored in on her. “And you mean to tell me there’s not a damn thing you can do?”

Cap, you don’t know the half of it, Alex thought ruefully. You just know what’s happening. We know why.

“I’m not sure there’s anything I or anyone can do in the very short term,” she said sadly. “If I had time—which I don’t—I could . . . uh oh.”

Two figures were approaching from the direction of the Wolverine locker rooms, coming up out of the passageway behind the uprights. Charlize immediately recognized Rachel and Harley.

Or rather, Rachel and a creature whose features still resembled Harley’s. She was sort of tagging along, a frightened chaperone, as he strode in front, spitting and emitting the occasional snarl. He was glaring up at the lights, shielding his eyes, and occasionally sniffing the air. He reminded Archer vaguely of a bear coming out of hibernation. Then he stumbled and fell, but quickly pounced up again. Something was profoundly wrong. His mind was inhabiting a body it no longer fully governed, but was he aware of that? He was obviously in psychic pain but perhaps his conscious mind was shutting it out.

“What the hell!” Cap declared.

Charlize put it more pointedly, a dismayed whisper. “Oh God. Is this what we have to look forward to?”

“Harley, wait,” Rachel was yelling.

He didn’t glance back. He just strode directly up to Charlize, growling.

“You stole my data files, you bitch. I got a call from the Bronx. Everything I’ve done is proprietary, and you’ve been stealing my data. I should kill you on the spot. You know way too much about this project.”

“I’ll tell you what I know. As of this moment, your insane ‘clinical trial’ is over. And you’re going to leave Gene-Tech. You’ll be lucky if you don’t end up in prison. You are so frigging out of this company.”

He spit, “You can’t tell me...”

“You don’t have a choice. I’m not letting you take my work down with you. If we can get past Sunday, then maybe we can figure out how to possibly undo this disaster you’ve created.”

“What I’ve created is a human miracle,” he declared angrily. “Only now it’s got a minor EPO problem. Which started after you showed up.”

“What are you talking about?” Charlize asked, alarmed.

Rachel focused in on Cap. “The red blood cell counts have dropped dangerously and...”

“So that’s what all the mysterious blood testing was about,” Cap smirked. “You geniuses screwed up. Again.”

“You can’t let them play till we find a way to fix the EPO levels,” Rachel went on to Cap.

“Have you lost your mind?” he glared. “Of course they’re gonna play. Unfortunately. We have a schedule. Though God knows what might happen.”

Then Harley turned on Charlize menacingly. “You did something to the players in my clinical trial. Something you didn’t tell us about. Probably some injection.”

“Harley, that’s not true,” Rachel shouted, exasperated. “I warned you all along that we were playing with fire. The synthetic EPO has finally triggered a rejection response. That’s what’s happened. It wasn’t supposed to, but it did.”

Charlize immediately suspected she knew what they’d done. In order to have something to measure progress, a marker, they had accompanied their transgenic work with a benign parallel procedure. They’d used viral vectors to insert the gene that boosts the production of erythropoietin, or EPO, a key hormone in the production of oxygen-carrying red blood cells, into the players’ muscle cell nucleus. The cells began making the hormone EPO and releasing it into the blood, signaling bone marrow to manufacture more red blood cells. Thus, a raised red blood cell count was a natural marker that the viruses were vectoring.

Maybe they hadn’t been reading the literature. Researchers had recently found out that the body could only be fooled for so long. When it recognizes that EPO is being made somewhere in the body besides its normal source, the kidneys, it sends out antibodies to kill the new EPO. Except they couldn’t really tell which was natural and which was being created from artificial stimulation. So, they decided to just kill all EPO and let God sort it out. Result, a dramatic drop in red blood cells, which carry oxygen.

“You don’t know what’s screwing up the blood counts,” Harley huffed. “I say Charlie did it.” Then he focused on Hunter again, his body shifting as he tried to avoid the lights. “By the way, I heard you were putting up more floods. That’s not necessary. There’re too many already.”

“Harley, you’re not telling me how to play my boys. That’s my job, sort of the same way that messing them up turned out to be your specialty.”

“Look,” he declared, focusing on Hunter while he scratched the back of his neck, “This game has to be postponed till we straighten out whatever the hell Charlie did. If it isn’t, I’m going to have our Gene-Tech attorney put the management of this club on formal notice.”

“You claimed Gene-Tech could turn this team around and now you want to put us on formal notice that you screwed up. I hope that fancy attorney of yours understands the concept of liability. Because you’re going to be up to your ass in it. Maybe with a little ‘breach of contract’ thrown in for good measure.”

“Then you’re going to be responsible for whatever happens.” Harley was arching his neck and turning to leave. “And you can consider all the performance data we collected in Bonaire to be non-operative.”

“Harley,” Rachel called after him, “I’m going to stay. I need to talk to Charlie.”

“Do whatever the hell you want,” he yelled over his shoulder. His walk reminded Alex of a prowl.

Rachel paused to watch him, and Alex could tell she was deeply disturbed by what she saw. Then she turned back to Charlie.

“He’s in denial, but the red blood counts are getting dangerous. On Sunday I’m afraid the players may come up against . . . I don’t know but I want to be here and try to keep a handle on what’s happening.” She turned to Cap. “I’ll need to monitor pulse and blood pressure regularly. And some extra oxygen tanks would be a good idea too.”

Hunter gave her a bemused look, like, Earth to Dr. Wu, this is a football game, not a clinic.

“You can try,” he mumbled.

Alex turned to Charlize. “This medical stuff is way above my pay grade, but we’ve got to think of everything that can happen and come up with something to do about it. For starters we have to know everything there is to know about everything—the locker rooms, where the teams enter and exit the field, how separated the stands are, the timing on the lights, everything.”

She nodded agreement, and then zeroed in on Rachel. “What you and Harley did is obscene. We’re on to your dirty secret, and for the sake of saving human life, we’re going to try to help contain the coming disaster, but I need to know one thing. Was Lamar Nolan aware of what you two did? Precisely? I assume Tim figured it out and that’s why Harley tried to get rid of him. So what’s the story with Nolan?”

“Charlie, I honestly don’t know what Harley told him. So I don’t know if he knows about . . .” She paused and glanced at Hunter and her voice trailed off.

Hunter was busy on his walkie-talkie. “Yeah, shut them down.”

“No, not yet,” Alex yelled with dismay.

But the large batteries of floodlights had already begun snapping off.

“Why not?” Cap asked. “The boys are back at the hotel and I’ve showed you the place. Buck hates it if I keep the field lit for no good reason.”

“Coach,” Alex went on, “maybe it would be a good idea to keep the lights up wherever we are. Maybe one of the Wolverines missed the bus and is still around somewhere. We’ve got to start thinking defensively.”

His concern came too late and just then, the last battery of stadium lights blanked out, leaving nothing but a faint glow from the direction of Manhattan farther south. They were immersed in the sudden dark.

No sooner had that happened than Alex experienced a mental alarm. Something unexpected had just happened and any normal predator’s first reaction to that is to go on offense, to strike out, just to be on the safe side.

“Come on,” Cap was saying through the gloom, “let’s hit the clubhouse and pack it in. I think the batteries on this walkie-talkie just died anyway.”

“Rachel,” Charlize said abruptly, “call Harley’s cell phone. Now.”

“Why?”

“Just do it, okay. Quick. I’ve got a bad feeling about this. It’s way too dark.”

It was a brilliant idea. No sooner did Rachel punch in the number than out of the darkness came a ringing.

It could have been a coincidence. It could have been anything; but there was only one thing to do.

“Turn and face it,” Alex whispered. “We can’t see whoever it is, but it can sure as heck see us, bet on it. Then we back slowly toward the tunnel leading to the locker room.”

Charlize spoke up, “I’m not even sure I know exactly which way –”

“I do,” Rachel whispered. “Stick with me.”

Alex suspected she might have at least partial night vision. Charlize had mentioned her hunch that Rachel had joined Harley in some of the early clinical experiments. Charlie also believed she had chickened out when she started experiencing side effects. So, who knew where she was now. Maybe they were about to find out.

The ringing had been moving toward them but now it stopped. Whoever it was had turned off their phone—but were they still coming?

“It’s over there,” Rachel said.

Alex supposed she was pointing but he couldn’t really see her. Then he guessed she realized that.

“To the left,” she whispered. “It’s watching us, deciding what to do.”

“Is it Harley?”

“I assume.” Her voice was trembling. “But whatever it is doesn’t move like anything I’ve ever seen. Jesus, I’m scared.”

“Just keep staring it down. And let’s go.”

Staying together they quickly backed through the goal posts and into the ramp leading under the end-zone seating and into the concourse.

A few more feet, Alex thought anxiously, and surely there’s some kind of light switch we can hit.

Then he noticed he could actually see a bit and realized why—there was a tiny string of LED emergency “night lights” located along the bottom of the walls on either side.

And then… Jesus!

From the darkness of the field came a piercing, anguished cry, an inhuman lament that embodied . . . what? It sounded like both frustration and anger.

Thank God, Alex thought. It was stalking us but now it’s giving up. In here, it doesn’t have the cover of dark.

“Cap,” he whispered, “is there a light switch anywhere along here?”

“About twenty feet down. There on the left.”

While Rachel monitored the dark at the entry of the concourse, he raced down. Moments later, rows of overhead fluorescents sprang to life.

In the dark outside there was nothing, no sign, or sounds. Rachel was still at the end of the tunnel, peering out at the field.

“I don’t see anything,” she said, relieved. “I think it’s gone.”

“Well,” Charlize declared, “it’s either Harley or something that ate him and is now digesting his cell phone.” She turned to Rachel. “How about trying it again?”

She did, and this time she got bounced to a message system. It had been turned off for the night.

“Cap,” Alex said, “we’ve got some serious prep work to do. We could start with any plans or diagrams you have of the stadium. Then we need to know how the lights work.”

“Fine.” He looked at Alex, then at Charlize. “So what are you two up to? I’ve got the feeling you’ve got something cooking that has to do with a lot more than lights.”

“Let me just say this,” Alex volunteered. “Try to keep an open mind and help us with the mechanics. We may be bringing some stuff in here that doesn’t need to be inspected by security. Are you going to be with us?”

“All the way. Just give me some sort of list so I don’t look like a jerk.”

“Then get us –”

At that precise moment Charlize’ cell phone rang. She glanced down. It was from a satellite phone.

“Uh oh,” she said grimly, “it’s God again. This is not good.”

DAY TEN: New York

Chapter Thirty-Four

August 15 Thursday, 9:31 PM

Gulfstream over Outer Banks

Lamar Nolan gazed at the disappearing orange band that was the horizon. He’d managed to keep his whereabouts a closely held secret for two days, something very difficult for the CEO of a major pharmaceutical conglomerate. His executive secretary Marcia, sitting just across the table on the Gulfstream, knew where he was, along with the COO, Maxwell Klein, but no one else had a clue, not even his wife Melanie, the curvaceous trophy blonde half his age. All communication with the outside world was by an untraceable satellite phone.

He had a lot on his mind. His chunk of Nolan Pharma stock and options was once worth nearly half a billion on paper, but now, in these days of class action lawsuits over perfectly good drugs, liabilities had begun pushing assets. Wall Street had taken notice. Every analyst in town had a sell rating on the stock and his options were ten feet under water. He seriously needed a breakthrough, something that wasn’t years back in the pipeline.

Two weeks ago, he’d assumed he had a promising start. Now he was en route home from a quick secret trip to Bonaire, where he’d carefully gone through Harley’s data. He’d realized what he had instead was a damned big headache.

The damn cowboy. The weekly reports were a cleverly constructed downplaying of what was really going on. Harley was supposed to just do some carefully controlled genetic tweaking, an exploration, try turning on a few hormonal switches with some judiciously selected transgenic DNA strands. Just to find out if performance enhancement was do-able. Like to get a hardier tomato you’d stick a gene from some other plant in here and one in there, trial and error, to see what happened. It was designed to be discreet in execution and top secret as far as what anybody, even the study subjects, knew. Elegant in its simplicity, it was a pilot project that would cut years off the usual cumbersome Stateside FDA protocols and could result in a gold mine of patents. The best part yet, by using the Wolverines as test subjects, he actually got paid to carry out a clinical trial.

But instead of using caution, Harley Ryan got ambitious and went massive. He was probably fishing for several simultaneous paradigm-altering breakthroughs that would change the face of gene therapy and make him a worldwide star. He screwed up, went too far, violated too many unknowns, and the result was rampant side effects. There was hostility, life-threatening aggression, and bouts of memory loss after dark. It was all there in the psychological tests and accompanying lab notes. The most recent entries were little more than rants by Harley, which was particularly scary.

He’d just gotten off the phone after calling Harley, whose mind state seemed to be bordering on the hallucinogenic. He concluded with a shock that Harley must have been doing experiments on himself as well.

“Lamar, damn it, I’ve been trying to reach . . . are you in the witness protection program? I can’t work under these circumstances.” Harley had sounded out of breath and the connection was intermittent. “I’m this close to getting it right and now everybody is about to sabotage my results.”

“What happened?”

“I . . . I can’t remember. I was at the stadium just now. Still am there, maybe. A minor problem has come up. Nothing I can’t handle given a few days’ time, but this game has got to be postponed.”

That was the last thing Lamar Nolan needed to hear. It wasn’t going to happen. No way in hell. The Wolverines had to play, side effects and all. It would be a PR disaster to call off the pre-season opener. Too many questions.

“I’ll talk with Press,” he said, equivocating. He was calculating what he had to do next. Break the news.

“Good idea. And you’ve got to talk to Cha–, Dr. Russell, get her on the team. She’s become part of the damn problem, man.” At times his voice sounded like a growl. “She did something to my study subjects.”

Lamar Nolan did not want to hear about any issues with the only other person in his hire who actually might still be of some help.

“What exactly do you think she –?”

“The red blood counts are . . . Rachel, Dr. Wu, claims they’ve started rejecting their own EPO. She’s got some bullshit explanation—but I think it’s something Charlize did. She’s determined to destroy my project. Hey, looks like I may have to kill her.”

Jesus, Lamar thought, I guess I made the right decision.

“Harley, you’re getting overworked. I want you to take some time off.”

“No frigging way.” That sense of a growl again. “I’m this close to the payoff.”

You’re this close to a total disaster would be closer to the truth, Nolan thought angrily.

“Harley, this is for your own good. You’re losing perspective. I’ve just had all our labs revoke your security pass. You went on paid leave, as of an hour ago. I’ve also shut down all network access. You need to clear your mind.”

“My mind has never been clearer,” he bellowed.

“There’s always room for improvement. And by the way, I think it would be extremely stressful for you to appear at the game Sunday.”

“What the hell are you talking about? Stay away from the game? No way.”

“It’s for your health. I’ve already arranged the matter there with Buck and his stadium security.” Then smoothly, “I’ve got another call to make.”

The horizon was completely dark now, just like the world he faced.

Make her do it.

“Marcia, get me Dr. Russell.” He was passing over the handset. “You have her cell.”

*****

When Lamar Nolan’s call came through, it echoed off the locker room walls of Wolverine Stadium. She let the phone ring a couple of times—frowning after she checked the caller I.D.—and then she reluctantly clicked it on.

“Yes.” She didn’t say hello, hi ya, whatever. Then, “What did he say?”

Alex watched as she listened for a long moment.

“He doesn’t get it. The project is in a new phase now. Call it crisis management.”

Another long pause.

“What you and Harley do is between you and Harley. I wasn’t invited to participate earlier. Thank God. So now I’m doing what I can to contain his mess. That’s it, period.”

Then she went on. “Okay, I’ll be there. No, that’s not too early.”

She clicked off and turned to Alex. “Harley’s been dumping his paranoid poison on Lamar. So now, he wants to talk with me about the project and about Harley. As far as I’m concerned, our cat’s gonna leap from the bag tomorrow morning. Or make that our leopard.”

“What do you think he wants from you?” Alex asked frowning.

“I think he wants me to bury myself in this disaster.” She moved over and stared out at the darkened stadium. “Which may have already happened.”

“Coach Hunter,” Alex said, “can we get those floodlights out there turned back on? We’ve got to get out of here and there’s too much going on in the dark.”

“Yeah, lemme borrow somebody’s phone. Mine’s crapped out.”

Alex gave him his and a few seconds later the stadium lights popped back on. It was the moment he was finally able to study Rachel Wu. She seemed extremely stressed out, emaciated, and in need of a month’s sleep. He wanted to give her a supportive hug and tell her they were going to try to save her and even Harley before this thing completely cratered and burned.

“Dr. Wu, please assure all of us that you’re going to be in this for the opener.” He didn’t yet know all of what they were going to have to do, but he did know that all hell could break loose.

She stared at him with bloodshot eyes. Just a stare, no answer, and then she turned to Charlie.

“Be careful what you say to Lamar. I don’t know what Harley’s told him.”

“Well, whatever Lamar Nolan is,” Charlize said wistfully, “he doesn’t have a death wish for the company. I can’t believe he would knowingly let Harley do what he did.”

“Charlie, you really ought to look up from your supercomputer more. Nolan Pharmaceuticals is gasping for air. I hacked their accounting site when I began to wonder why our monthly paychecks were slow. Like they were always a week late. And guess what, there’s this little problem of having to cover salaries with the previous month’s receivables. There is absolutely no float. The company has a line of credit but it’s virtually maxed out. Hand to mouth. None of us knew this when we sold our collective soul to Lamar Nolan. He was hoping our, maybe make that your, research was going to print money for Gene-Tech, and through us, the entire company; but then this thing with the Wolverines came along. The long shot that could be the real rainmaker. So, off we went to Bonaire and Fantasy Land. My guess—though I don’t know—is Harley told Lamar to just let him do it his way. Don’t ask, don’t tell.”

Charlize stared at her. “You know exactly what Harley did, right? You helped him.”

“Truthfully, only generalities, and I assume Tim suspected something by the time you got down there. I’m sure he couldn’t wait to spill some kind of beans to you.”

“Except he never got the chance. Harley made sure of that.”

The pained silence that followed told Alex all he needed to know about who did Tim.

“Well, I’m going out to Shore Hills tomorrow to see Lamar. I’m not looking forward to it.”

“Want some company?” Alex asked. “Backup.”

Her face softened and she stared at him lovingly. “I’d kill to have you there, but this has got to be one-on-one, head-to head. It’s the western shoot-out in the middle of the street. Me and him.”

“Then my prayers will go with you.” He glanced over at Cap, who seemed confused by a lot of what had just been said. “Coach Hunter, you’ll be doing lights when this thing comes down. I’ll be doing bedpans.”

He looked at Alex like he was crazy. Maybe he was.

DAY ELEVEN: New Jersey

Chapter Thirty-Five

August 16 Friday 10:43 AM

Corporate Headquarters,

Shore Hills, NJ

Nolan Pharmaceutical’s research center and offices were in a manicured forty-acre campus near Shore Hills, but far enough on the fringe of things to be unobtrusive. For security purposes, it was surrounded by a fourteen-foot-high chain-link fence, which was well lit and bristled with closed-circuit cameras and motion detectors. Entrances to the building had the level of uniformed, armed personnel you would expect. Industrial espionage was always an issue in high-stakes pharmaceutical research, people getting in who shouldn’t be there. But there also was the matter of the wrong things getting out: microbes, accidental viruses, drugs for off-label use.

Dr. Charlize Russell knew the Shore Hills headquarters reasonably well. However, since her lab was at Downtown Manhattan Hospital, she didn’t have her own parking space. But she was prominent enough in the company to merit a big sticker on her windshield and a salute from the guard station when she drove through the gates.

She always felt the place was a little creepy and she could never identify with the corporate culture on display. Out here the “bottom line” was the bottom line. Humanitarian medical research came in a distant second. . . .

To get into Lamar Nolan’s corner office suite she had to get past his personal gatekeeper, Marcia Loges, seventy, pearl-white hair tied back in a severe bun. Marcia was devoted to Nolan, usually knew everything, and Charlize suspected she was disapproving of the secret human clinical trials on Bonaire. Charlize detected an old-school sense of what was proper and what was not. They got along reasonably well.

Now she was sitting in the chair across from Marcia’s desk and watching Lamar through an indiscreetly open door while he finished a phone call to the Nolan Pharma lab just north of Paris. His French was impeccable. She understood enough to realize that Rachel’s insights into the company’s fiscal problems were not imagined. She felt a chill just watching and listening. His face was pained and he was talking about stalling creditors. He also was worried about the stock price, which had been drifting lower over recent months, not helped by the spillover of legal problems of other big pharmaceuticals—Merck hit for nearly five billion over a lousy pain killer, for Chrissake—as well as his own.

Finally, he signed off and Marcia nodded for her to go on in. With the subdued lighting and the massive computer screen at one end of his large, oval cherry-wood desk, he seemed to reign over the room rather than merely inhabit it.

She had worked closely with Lamar Nolan during the buyout and felt she knew him on a first-name basis, CEO to CEO. He was a normally cool former Brit, but this morning he looked extremely stressed. Maybe, she thought, it was the jet lag from his trip to . . . wherever.

He looked up at her coming in, rapidly changing his focus.

“I’ll get right to it” he declared tersely. “Harley’s participation in the Wolverine project is no longer viable. His personality has become unstable. I don’t know how long he’s been this way but it could be affecting his work. Just wanted to get that out of the way.”

“Where is he now?” she asked, not entirely shocked. Harley clearly had gone over the edge, but still, she was surprised Nolan had dropped the axe so soon. Zero tolerance and he didn’t even know the half of it. So was he suddenly getting focused? She felt a burst of encouragement that he might be one of the good guys after all.

“The one place he’s not is at any of our labs. I’ve revoked his security authorization.”

“You may not know how wise that is.” She settled onto the sofa facing the desk feeling a wave of relief. “Thank goodness. Shutting down his project is way overdue.”

He shot her a perplexed look. “I didn’t say anything about shutting it down. There’s way too much invested now. Look, it’s not something I like to admit, but the future of this –”

“Okay,” she interrupted, “before we go any further, I think you’d better tell me what you know about what Harley did. Could be you’re not entirely... ”

“I just got back from Bonaire.” He seemed to deliberately cut her off. “I looked at the real data, not the fictions Harley has been reporting for the past several months. I now realize he experimented on a massive scale, which was not the limited scope of work he agreed to.”

“I don’t know if we’re talking about the same project,” she gasped. “In Bonaire Harley went straight to human trials! He should have started at least with primates—or better still, mice—but he couldn’t be bothered.”

“We were presented with a windfall opportunity to push the envelope,” Nolan said firmly. “The idea was to try some minor, reversible tweaking of certain known DNA strands to analyze the effect on physical performance. As for pre-clinical studies, it would have been impossible to test for the particular parameters we were interested in if we could only use animal subjects.”

Bam, there it was. Lamar Nolan was the gray eminence behind going straight to human trials to test the effects of gene splicing, but did he know where Harley had gotten the DNA he was “tweaking” into the Wolverine players? She supposed there was a finite chance Harley had kept that part to himself, his secret formula, for the day when he and Rachel split off to form their own company. He could have been reporting something entirely different to Nolan.

Then Nolan continued. “In Bonaire, I went through Harley’s data first hand and I was shocked by the scale of what he did. It was far greater than what he was formally reporting; but that’s where we are. And in any case, nothing about it was illegal. Though many of his splices are . . . puzzling, areas of the genome that look unfamiliar. But then it’s not really my field.”

“The whole thing is a deal with the devil.” She was aghast at his nonchalance.

He stared at her. “What are you saying?”

“Use your imagination.” Could he really be so naïve? “How do you think he got all that spectacular performance? That wasn’t from just ‘tweaking’ for God’s sake.”

He paused for a puzzled moment, then, “You mean –?”

“Fast, powerful, lethal. Performance sort of like a Big Cat? Think.”

There was a long silence, his eyes hardening.

“Good God,” he finally sputtered, “are you saying he went transgenic! He vectored in animal DNA!” He rolled back in his chair, as though for air, and stared at her through the gloom of his office. She suddenly wondered if he didn’t want her to get a good look at his eyes just then. “I assumed that was just a metaphor he used to pitch the idea of genetic specialization in certain . . . Jesus. Why didn’t you tell me the instant you found out?”

“That’s sort of what I’m doing,” she said, deadpan. “I wanted to have ironclad proof first.” Watching him now, she didn’t believe for a second that he didn’t know. His “shocked, shocked” act was less than Oscar caliber. “Well, now I have it and let me be the first to break the news that Gene-Tech has a huge problem on its hands. A problem brand new to the world. We’re about to make some very interesting headlines.”

He said nothing, just examined her for a long moment through narrowed eyes. She figured he was wondering how best to keep her quiet and with the program.

“Then tell me what the hell you’re up to. Rumor has it you’ve brought in some unemployed ex-do-gooder to chauffer you around. I don’t know anything about this Archer character but I hope you’re not making him privy to Gene-Tech’s internal matters. What’s his interest in DNA research anyway?”

“Right now he knows more about the side effects of what Harley has done than Harley does. He learned them the hard way, helping me out in Bonaire. And protecting me from Harley’s . . . creations.”

“Then maybe I’ll hire him to work in Security.”

“I’m sure he’d find that very funny.”

Then he leaned forward across the desk, eyes grim. “Okay, look, whatever Harley did or didn’t do, surely it’s not the first time there’s been transgenic sharing in humans at some level.”

My God, she thought, he’s in denial city. And he’s trying to teleport me there.

“Actually, this is a first. There’s only one other known case and that was a single strand, in a transplant, a little girl that accidentally got...”

“Accidents happen. Maybe that’ll be what happened here, a quote unquote accident, if there ends up being a problem.”

Surely, she thought, he doesn’t believe any such lame, transparent BS would fly. All her hope that he would do the right thing was turning to despair.

“Anyway,” he continued, “whatever insanity Harley’s committed, this company is not going to go down because of it.” He paused and bored in on her. “That’s why I’ve already decided you’re going to take over this project and fix it.”

She just stared at him for a moment, literally dumbstruck. What was he, nuts! No way was she going to get drawn into Harley’s madness. Lamar Nolan had no intention of doing the ethical thing with Harley’s project. He was just working with the new fact that she’d discovered it was transgenic and therefore she was the safest and most obvious candidate to step in and carry on.

“If I were to ‘take over’ his mess, the only thing I’d do is try to keep us from getting famous. I’d back out everything he’s done before anybody finds out.”

“It’s a cliché to say it,” Nolan finally spoke, after a protracted frown, “but Gene-Tech has all its chips down on the biggest gamble in this company’s long and distinguished history of gambles. We are where we are with this project. Harley took matters too far and went over the edge, but still, we have no choice but to downshift and keep going forward, not backward. And right now we need everybody on board.”

“That’s my problem,” she said with chagrin. “If this company ship goes down, right now I’m on it. I’m liable by association.”

“Then I’d say you have no choice but to take over. Nobody else can work through the problems. When it’s fixed, you’re free to walk away.”

Right, she told herself grimly, I should live so long.

“Oh,” she went on, “and did I mention that the game on Sunday could blow up in everybody’s face, so there may not be anything left to ‘walk away’ from?”

“Then we’ll have another talk after Sunday.” He leaned back in his chair. “From here on we’ve got to avoid anything that could disintegrate into a problem. For starters, we’ve got to keep Harley away from the players till after the game. I don’t want him interacting with them and screwing up their heads.” He paused. “And there’s actually another reason I need him absent. I’ve contracted a TV production crew to be on the field and document how this goes. I want the final version for the history books to be one that we edit. And I don’t want Harley Ryan in it or anywhere near it.”

Jesus! That’s when she had a blood-runs-cold moment. Lamar Nolan was the puppet-master playing everybody.

“You have got to be kidding. This is already going to be on television. And if things go wrong, after the first quarter it’ll be on CNN. You think you can doctor this looming disaster into an infomercial!”

“The main thing I want you to do is just keep Harley quarantined. Away from the players. Let me worry about the rest.”

“Sorry, but I’ve got plenty to be worried about.” She rose to leave. “Like my entire life’s work. You enabled Harley, you deal with him.”

As she headed out, gasping for air, she already had decided that the meeting was surreal. Both Harley and Lamar Nolan were in denial that their worlds could come crashing down on national television in a matter of hours.

Unfortunately, her own fate might be part of the crash.

DAY TWELVE: New York

Chapter Thirty-Six

August 17 Saturday, 1:33 PM

Wolverine Stadium, New York

“Tiny” Bledsoe was determined to see his petite, headstrong wife Vivian, possibly for the last time, before the game. Part of the problem was, he had to see her during the day, when he was normal. It was not going to be easy. He and everybody else who’d been in Harley’s “clinical trial” were being treated like prisoners, shuttled from stadium to hotel and back on brightly lit busses with armed “security.” They were not allowed to go home or even be visited by family members.

He had a plan. He got Viv to hire on as one of the lunch caterers. She was svelte, with dark hair and slightly Asian eyes. The uniform they had her wear bulged in all the right places, but her demeanor was strictly business. She blended in. All the other players knew her but they just winked at Tiny and said nothing.

He had explained the plan to her by phone earlier.

“When you get the buffet down,” he advised, “say you need a bathroom break and then take the elevator up to the press box. I’ll do the same. Nobody will miss either one of us for a few minutes and I’ll meet you there.”

“Honey, if I’m not there serving, I’ll get effing fired.”

“Who cares. It’s not your new career. Just do this for me.”

She did.

After the lunch started and everybody was chowing down, she’d excused herself and taken the elevator up and he followed two minutes later. It turned out the press box was locked, so when he met her waiting at the door, he just kicked it in. Piece of cake, given his newfound body and strength.

Once inside, he hugged her with a passionate desperation.

“Viv, this thing is serious. I just wanted to see you and tell you what you’re going to see tomorrow isn’t me. My body and my mind have been hijacked. What happens on Sunday is beyond my control. Bobby, everybody, is freaking out. They’ve done something to us that we can’t stop.”

“Then quit. Don’t effing play. Just tell Buck Press to stuff your contract. We can start a restaurant with your name back in Kentucky. Something. Get away from them. God, baby, you look weird. You’re so damn changed.”

“Viv, I almost killed J.D., and I don’t even know why. But this . . . thing only really comes over us in the dark. So maybe the game will be okay, with the stadium lights.”

“Honey, I beg you,” she pleaded, “don’t do it. Dammit, let’s sneak out of here now and just disappear. I’ve got a suitcase of your things in the car. Have you seen yourself, what you look like?”

He glanced away, his eyes pained.

“I can’t leave now. Not yet. If I’m caught in the dark with you, I might . . . I don’t know what I might do. They keep the lights on all night at the hotel. I’m hoping this—whatever it is—will wear off soon. Maybe it’s already starting. But until then . . . I think I need to be kept under supervision.”

“Baby, that’s just what they’ve got you to thinking. It ain’t so. You think I can’t handle you? I’ve been ‘supervising’ you for years.”

“Okay, look, let me see if I can get through this one game. If I can do that, then maybe I’ll be safe for you to be around.”

“Honey, what have they done to you?”

“I don’t know. Sometimes now I even get spells where I feel weak. But they’ve stopped what they were doing down in Bonaire. They’re scared to do it here because it’s probably illegal.”

She moved in and hugged him again, deeply. “Baby, I’m so worried about you. Promise me you’ll take care of yourself.”

“Maybe you shouldn’t come to the game.”

“No effing way,” she declared. “I’m going to be there for you. I’ll be down on the effing field if I need to be.”

BOOK THREE

DAY THIRTEEN: New York

Chapter Thirty-Seven

August 18 Sunday, 6:13 PM

Wolverine Stadium, The Bronx

Game time. When Charlize and Alex got to Wolverine Stadium, they both had white knuckles and a churning stomach. How was this going to go? The parking-lot tailgaters, now draining their kegs, were wearing Wolverine jerseys and attempting to be upbeat, but they clearly were just hoping to keep each other’s spirits aloft. They all expected to go home devastated once again.

What was really to come, no one could have remotely imagined.

Two burly security guards with New York accents, assigned by Cap, led them down to the Wolverine side of the field. For Charlize it was her first time actually being on FieldTurf and she immediately decided she preferred the feel of grass. She also was still skeptical about Alex’s containment plan, but she had gone along and had arranged with Downtown Manhattan Hospital for some of their overflow. They were carrying containers of what he thought might possibly save the fans. If this night went off the rails they both were terrified it could turn life threatening in a flash.

For what good it might do at this late date, Charlie had been frantically working around the clock to cross-correlate the “trait DNA” database from Cambridge with Harley’s DNA modifications in the players to try to figure out what they could be up against. It wasn’t long before his strategy was clear. He was looking for speed, aggression, strength, precision, and unmitigated self-interest. She wasn’t surprised that to get this, he leaned heavily on the Big Cats, but he brought in other species as well. The polar bear, able to swim fifty miles in ice water, had a specialized metabolism that promoted stamina and conservation of energy. There were a couple of lesser-known small African cat-like creatures, who robbed beehives, renowned for their ferocity and indifference to pain. Perhaps the most ironic of all—was it Harley’s idea of a joke, she wondered—the New York Wolverines now carried several strands of actual wolverine DNA. They were probably named as the mascot in the first place, she reflected with irony, because they were some of the meanest, most disagreeable mammals alive. Then came the wolf, for all the obvious reasons. She shuddered to think that werewolves were no longer just a fabled part-human, part-animal chimera. They were here.

She and Alex quickly finished their on-field set-up, then headed for the locker room, where they were accosted by the sights and sounds and scents of bedlam. And there, in the milling crowd of players and staff and media people, was Lamar Nolan’s anonymous PR camera crew, quietly immortalizing it all. Charlie, remembering how three of these players had attacked her and Alex only days before, felt knots in her stomach. Pre-games are naturally all about testosterone but to her the room had an ominous edge, with players constantly jostling and snapping at each other, their adrenalin up and just barely contained. The coaching staff was hovering in corners, trying to stay out of their way and the TV crew was not pressing the players for close-ups.

“Alex,” she whispered, “do you notice it? The smell? Most football locker rooms smell like the inside of a Pine-Sol factory, but there’s something else here.”

“I’m not sure. We’re not in a flower shop, you know.”

“No, there’s something cutting. A dankness. It’s not really human.”

Then she gazed around at the players, revealed in a blaze of Klieg lights as they stripped down to don padding, and gasped. They were frighteningly monstrous. Everything about them—necks, veins, biceps—was gross. They were so bloated with muscle they were having trouble getting into their uniforms. Harley had created something remarkable, all right—but it was also terrifying.

“God, Alex,” she whispered again, “look at them.”

“Right. What are all those HD video cameras telling the world? What are the talking heads saying? You’ve got to notice.”

“And they could snap and turn on anybody in the room at any moment.” She looked around. “Shit, there’s a guy over there. Just a mike, no cameras, but if he actually watches his own network he might remember me. I don’t want to get famous all over again if Harley screws up.”

“Just keep your head down. I doubt he’d ever put it together.”

She sighed in resignation. “At least Harley’s nowhere to be seen. Guess I’d better make that ‘so far.’ Lamar claimed he’d barred him from the stadium, but that’s hard to imagine. He’s got too much invested.”

To check, she headed for Cap Hunter, nervously working her way through the hulking specimens of quasi humanity, and asked what he knew.

“Haven’t laid eyes on the bastard since the other night, but I’ve been busy.”

Alex was coming over. Having a normal physique, he now looked out of place. “Cap, I took a look at the new lights. Pretty impressive installation.”

“Yeah, I just got them finished and ready a couple of hours ago. Didn’t really have a chance to test them out the way I’d hoped to, but I'll tell you this, add them to what’s already here and it’s gonna be bright as midday. You could about fry an egg on the fifty-yard line. I’m gonna turn them on in ten minutes.”

“We’re concentrating on protecting the fans,” Alex warned. “We can’t do anything for your coaching staff around the bench if things go off the track.”

“Well, I’ve made some serious upgrades in bench security,” Cap declared. “I hired a private guard company and they’re bringing along a bunch of baddass German Shepherds. I figure that ought to cover my assistant coaches and staff.”

That, Alex thought, was actually brilliant in more ways than he probably realized. Because of the instinctive animosity in most large predators toward scavengers like jackals and hyenas, who are always trying to steal their kill, there is considerable residual enmity towards anything reminiscent of them. The presence of large dogs was going to be very distracting.

It let him breathe a little easier, but not much.

While he was finalizing the mechanics of their emergency preparations with Coach Hunter, Dr. Rachel Wu appeared, her worried eyes seemingly buried in hollow sockets, and drew Charlize aside, saying they needed to go over some data files. Alex thought she looked even worse than the last time he saw her. She appeared to have gotten no sleep at all.

Well, he thought, guess she’s got plenty to worry about. Don’t we all.

While they huddled in the corner with some manila folders, he tried to calm his mind and come up with anything they had overlooked. But gazing around, he realized there could be a hundred things they hadn’t thought of.

The Wolverines were contractually obligated to permit interviews and he watched as Natalie Porter, the new superstar sports reporter from NBC, honed in on the starting quarterback Dutch Mathis with a microphone.

“Dutch, you look very . . . different since the last time we talked.” She flipped back her auburn hair and never dented her smile, nails like red claws. But there was wariness in her voice barely masked by bravado. It seemed she was having trouble actually looking at him. “Where were you guys hiding all summer and what were you doing? Tell me. I can keep a confidence. And look at you. Did you all go to Superman school or something?”

“Natalie, that’s a trade secret.” He smiled back. How, Alex wondered, could she not realize that the ripples of new muscles around his neck were something no human had ever had? Or was her awareness coded into the “Superman” crack?

Jesus, he thought, she knows something funny has gone on, but she can’t just confront anybody. She’s working around it with happy talk.

While Dutch Mathis continued to joust with Natalie Porter, Rachel and Charlize were looking increasingly concerned as they examined the files Rachel had brought. He decided to walk over and ask.

“It’s about the latest EPO levels,” Rachel said guardedly, her voice barely above a whisper. “But that’s a separate problem. Basically we need to have complete control out there, but I don’t know how it can be done.”

“If we're going to be on the field, I’m just thinking about where we should be.”

He remembered seeing a bank of video monitors behind the Wolverine bench, not far from where Charlize and he had stashed their wartime materiel. They were hooked to feeds from the broadcast booth and a string of computers and hard drives so that the coaching staff could have their own instant replays from different angles. That would be the obvious place to lie in wait, with their containment measures in place.

Now Cap was on his walkie-talkie ordering all the lights to be switched on. With that done, everything was ready. He then decided to cut his usual pre-game pep talk short.

“All right, I know you’ve all given a lot to get us here. It hasn’t been easy. You’ve sacrificed. Your families have sacrificed. Now it’s time to find out if it’s all been worth it. So let’s go out there and make some history.”

Showtime.

As the Wolverines stormed the field in their blue and white uniforms, the excitement and anticipation in the stomping, cheering, chanting throng was palpable. It was as though the fans took one look and suddenly sensed their team had been somehow rejuvenated. There was something pack-like going on and the very air had the scent of a kill in the making. The stadium welled up with visceral electricity generated by tens of thousands of pumped, screaming fans.

“Alex,” Charlize yelled, “I’m worried that all this energy is going to spill over and freak them. There’s a lot going on. It could get overwhelming.”

“Let’s hope the lights and a sense memory of what a real game is like will help them hold it together. Circus animals deal with yelling crowds all the time, so who knows. But you’re right, it’s dangerous as hell.”

Under the blaze of the new high-pressure sodium lights, the playing field seemed to bake under an equatorial sun, even as twilight settled in. Cap had been as good as his word about that. Alex also identified the guard service he had engaged. The guys were in plain dark suits and ties, with nothing to distinguish them as security except they were all about six-five and had the authority and bearing of Special Forces commandos. He felt safer just looking at them. If they were packing, it wasn’t apparent, but he seriously doubted it. It would have been crazy and nobody would confuse these guys with crazy. Besides, he told himself, with superhero torsos like theirs, who needed heat? There also were ten German Shepherds in tarp-covered kennels just behind the bench.

The home crowd was still roaring as the officials and designated players huddled in mid-field for the coin toss. Alex and Charlize used the moment of distraction to nervously prep their own game plan. They signaled the two grounds keepers Cap had supplied to ready their electric vehicle for use at a moment’s notice. It had a small power sprayer that was used to apply herbicide to vagrant clumps of weeds in hard-to-reach locations. Alex got them to clean the tank and a couple of spare receptacles thoroughly and then Charlize took those down to Downtown Manhattan Hospital. She’d made informal arrangements with the lab people there to acquire a leftover compound he hoped would repel the Wolverines from getting into the stands. She let Alex know she had her doubts: The whole scene was just too damned scary, had too many unknowns.

As fifty-five thousand pairs of eyes focused on the toss, the two ground crew guys gave Charlie and Alex a thumbs-up and a mischievous grin. When Cap first told them what they would be asked to do and provided a vulgar bribe, they were incredulous but thought it was a delicious prank, a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. They’d be drinking free rounds at the local off this for years.

“Think we can depend on them?” Charlize asked. “If things get so crazy that we need them, it may be crazy enough to cause them to bail.”

“You really know how to scare a guy,” he said with a grimace. “They’re the closest thing we’ve got to an actual containment plan.”

New York won the flip and elected to receive. What happened next, everybody in the country either eventually saw or heard about. It was immediately clear Harley had earned every dime of what Gene-Tech had been paid. It was thrilling—a whole new level of sports performance.

In the much-rebroadcast opening play, Bobby Rath received the kickoff on the Wolverine three-yard line and the return team created a V-shaped wall of blockers, led by Tiny Bledsoe. Any Seattle player that tried to get through was either knocked flat or swept aside. As the Wolverines flew toward their first touchdown, Seattle was powerless to stop them.

“My God,” Charlize declared over the deafening roar all around them, “that was incredible. Could it be that Harley was a genius after all? Just keep the lights on and they really are playing like a whole new species.”

Alex agreed, hating to admit it made his blood race. “Gotta say it’s a little frightening to imagine what they’ll be like when they actually get going. What just happened could merely be them limbering up.”

Naturally, Cap went for a two-point conversion. Why kick for a measly one when you own every blade of fake grass on the field?

The home crowd was yelling their heads off, but they also were stunned. There was something surreal about what had just happened. It was too easy. Everybody knew the Wolverines were over-the-hill bums. It was as though fifty-five thousand people had joyously watched a hippo take flight, but their better judgment was screaming, “Hold on a second!”

But things were just beginning to get wild. Cap sent in the kickoff team and the kick went between the goalposts and into the stands. This was more than a bit disconcerting to the Seattle special teams players who had to worry about stopping field goals.

Seattle took the ball on their twenty, the quarterback dropped back for a pass and promptly got sacked at the eleven. A quick-opening off-tackle play got them nothing. It was now third and nineteen. Seattle immediately called a time out and when they came back, they pulled out one of the oldest trick plays in the books.

A number of players were substituted. That meant there were all sorts of Seattle uniforms coming on and going off the field, and the Wolverines paid them no attention. One player, however, stopped short of the sideline and lined up on the ball. This made him a legal receiver—a receiver who was completely uncovered. Seattle quickly snapped the ball, and the quarterback fired it to the lonesome player. It was only through the mercurial speed of the cornerback that he was tackled at the Wolverine forty-five yard line.

Cap Hunter, standing just in front of Charlize and Alex, seemed in shock. But if he was unnerved, that was nothing compared to the Wolverine defensive squad. There was a kind of paralyzed disbelief. The stands were silent, with mutterings of “the same old Wolverines” to be heard everywhere.

“Alex, what’s going on?” Charlize felt as stunned as the crowd.

“Guess it ain’t over till it’s over. Maybe Harley spliced in the brawn and neglected the brains part.”

“Or maybe one cancels the other out.”

“I’m just worried they don’t get frustrated and lash out when things don’t go their way. This thing could head in a deadly new direction real fast.”

Seattle ran another play into the middle. It went nowhere, but the spotters in the press box atop the stadium noticed something. As soon as the ball was snapped, the Wolverine linebackers pinched in toward the line. Worse, the cornerbacks, towering hulks named Josh Lincoln and George Pitman, also took steps inward. That was a prescription for disaster and the spotters knew it.

On the second play of the series, Seattle went back to its air game. The quarterback fell back to pass, but when the Wolverines bulldozed his protection and were about to sack him, he lateraled to his running back, a former college quarterback. The second man immediately loosed a bomb to a Seattle receiver who had blown by the compromised safeties. The score was suddenly eight to six.

A light bulb went off over Alex’s head. He turned to Charlize.

“I think I’m getting it,” he declared with satisfaction. “The ball is surrogate ‘prey.’ Their instincts are to focus in on it, to go for it and bring it down. That’s the ‘kill.’ That’s perfect for a ground game, but not for a passing game where the ground animal can unexpectedly turn into a bird.”

“Bingo,” she said, nodding vigorous agreement. “So when the ‘prey’ takes flight, they have to change their strategy from stalking the ball carrier to chasing something that is flying away like a flushed bird. Maybe Harley overlooked the genes for that.”

Now Alex was frowning. “This worries me. Their brains have been affected and it’s coming through. Could be they’re starting to act more like a pack than a team.”

“Dear God, don’t say that. . . .”

The conversion was blocked and Seattle kicked off. Bobby Rath took the ball on the five-yard line, made it to the Seattle thirty before he lost traction on the faux “grass”, and got shoved out of bounds.

Again the crowd went into paroxysms of cheering, their confidence restored. With the next play, the line holding like a medieval castle wall, Dutch drifted back and rifled a bullet downfield to Bobby. The ball was traveling so fast it didn’t have an appreciable downward arc, and was about to sail several feet over Rath’s head. But he saw it, made an incredible leap, and snagged the pigskin projectile. When he came down, he was on the five-yard line and three Seattle defenders were standing in his way. He did what seemed like a bounce, then a somersault over their heads into the end zone.

This time the fans exploded with a force that approximated a large bomb, screaming, stomping, and making the stadium literally rock. It took several minutes before Alex and Charlize could hear themselves yelling to each other.

The two-point run was a no-brainer. They just strolled into the end zone behind an impregnable offensive line.

Coach Hunter’s cell phone rang.

“Yeah, Buck.” A pause. “Well, I can try, but once they get fired up, there’s not much I can do. Yeah, nice problem to have.” He clicked off.

Alex exchanged glances with Charlize.

“Did you hear that?” She said, a slight quiver in her voice. “Cap is saying he’s not really in control any longer—which means that nobody is in charge. The more you think about that, the scarier it gets.”

Cap called a time out and huddled the team, begging them to go easy.

And maybe, Alex thought, they listened, at least for now. When New York kicked to Seattle, the ball only reached the end zone and it was spotted on the twenty. Seattle again made the mistake of trying to run and got decked at the line of scrimmage. But the next play was a long pass that connected on the thirty-five yard line. The receiver made it to the forty before being brought down. The Wolverine defense seemed flustered, even angry, that Seattle was throwing the ball. It was like they were somehow cheating.

“Alex, this is getting to be too normal. We should be relieved, but I’m not. I’m afraid something is lurking just below the calm surface and it’s about to blow.”

Something was happening, all right, but it wasn’t what she expected.

The next Seattle play was also a pass, but George Pitman muscled his way in front of the receiver and picked it off. What followed was some of the most astonishing broken-field running ever seen in Wolverine stadium, as he zigzagged around, or ran over, six or seven Seattle players before barreling into the end zone.

The Wolverine fans were again going wild. The bench was in pandemonium. Cap himself was getting hoarse from cheering.

That’s when it began. Pitman suddenly just sat down in the end zone, after seeming to stumble slightly. And a couple other Wolverines were bent over, wheezing, as though having trouble catching their breath.

“Charlie, check that out,” Alex said. “I think something’s wrong.”

“Oh, shit,” Rachel Wu said, coming up to them. “It’s happening.”

Alex didn’t know what was going on, but one of Cap’s assistant coaches noticed the problem, pulled the three players from the field, and settled them on the bench. Rachel went over and stood behind them. They all were bent over with their heads between their legs.

“George, how do you feel?”

When he slowly looked up and turned to look at her. He was sweating and there was an ashen pallor to his skin.

“I don’t know. I just suddenly thought my legs were gonna give out. The pain. I started having little spells of this about a week ago. Then Cap eased up on the workouts, so nobody got much in the way of physical stress. I didn’t know it was gonna be this bad.”

“I was afraid of this,” she said. “Just stay still for a while.”

“It’s the EPO thing, isn’t it?” Charlize had walked over to her.

“Damn,” Rachel said. “I was hoping it wouldn’t get this critical.”

“A low red-cell count can cause serious pain,” Charlize declared. “Muscles running out of oxygen can do that to you. In that case, I think this game should be stopped right now. Guess Harley was right when he wanted to postpone the whole thing.”

They both knew there was no way on earth that was going to occur. The howling crowd would lynch any official who tried. The Wolverines were actually beating another team for a change.

The opening Seattle series stalled out after three fumbled pass attempts. It was again time for the Wolverines to receive and the crowd was getting more stoked by the second. Could the Wolverines maintain the momentum that had fired them from the opening kickoff?

Bobby Rath received, but right away it was clear something had changed. Instead of a repeat of the piercing blitzkrieg of the first return, the Wolverines appeared to have downshifted. They were operating in a lower gear. Rath made it to his own twenty, which was a respectable return, but he soon started slowing. Seattle managed to take out the two defenders running interference for him and bring him down.

They skipped the huddle since everybody instinctively knew what everybody else in the pack was thinking. Mathis took the ball and dropped back to pass, as Bobby headed downfield on a deep post pattern. It was their signature play. Bobby’s speed would force the cornerback to turn his hips in order to keep up, then he would cut on a diagonal across the field toward the goal posts. Rath knew the cornerback was dead as soon as his hips turned, Dutch knew where Rath was going to be, and Bobby knew where Dutch was going to place the ball. The two would intersect with perfect precision.

Except it didn’t happen.

Bobby didn’t have anything like his previous speed, the cornerback didn’t need to turn his hips, and Seattle had him covered like a blanket. It scarcely mattered though, since Dutch was sacked before he could get rid of the ball. It was a five-yard loss.

“Maybe this is a blessing in disguise,” Alex whispered to Charlie, relief in his voice. “This new problem is cutting them down to size. So, even if this thing suddenly blows, they can’t do as much harm. Maybe the chance of a massacre is over. God, let’s hope so.”

“But this could turn out to be just as bad,” she said sadly. “They could die. I think we’ve got to get some medics out here with oxygen.”

The action on the field had come to a momentary halt because of an offside call against Seattle. It slowed the game for a moment and allowed the Wolverines a chance literally to catch their breath. Then they ran another play and managed a first down in Seattle territory. However, the level of performance had deteriorated significantly. They still had most of their strength, but they were losing their speed and control. Sure enough, on the very next play, Dutch fumbled and Seattle recovered.

They first ran one up the middle for no yardage. On the second play, Seattle tossed a quick look-in pass to the wide receiver. They had caught the Wolverines in a sloppily done Cover-2 defense, which allowed the receiver to split the free safety and strong safety, and go for a big gain.

“Shit!” Cap Hunter could be heard to declare. “What’s wrong with these boys?”

“Cap,” Charlize muttered under her breath, talking to herself, “the motor’s fine but the gas line is not delivering. Let’s just hope you can get them out of here alive.”

Two plays later Seattle managed to grind out another first down and the stadium fans were growing confused and subdued. Once again, nobody believed what they were seeing. This was a football team disintegrating before their eyes, and pockets of fans started booing.

That’s when Charlize looked around and spotted a figure stalking up the ramp behind the goal posts, from the direction of the locker rooms and he looked crazed.

“Alex, look who’s coming.” She was dismayed. “As though we needed more problems.”

Harley began loping down the sidelines, but he abruptly paused for a second when he passed the sprayer vehicle. Yep, Alex thought, he can smell it. He’s been drinking the Kool-Aid, right along with the team.

“No way was he not going to be here,” Charlize went on. “Lamar couldn’t have stopped him with paratroopers.”

Now he was striding up to them. His eyes were like the undead and his stubble seemed to be turning white by the minute. He exuded a menace that Charlie found truly frightening.

“Harley, it’s the EPO effect,” Rachel declared to him, mournfully. “There’s nothing we...”

“Damn it Charlie,” he yelled, “I warned you and Cap that this could happen. Nobody would listen to me.”

Ignored, Rachel shrank back, out of the line of fire.

“Harley,” Charlize said, “What is happening here is because of what you did. No wonder Lamar doesn’t want you around.”

“He wants to cut me out so he won’t have to share any of the patents,” Harley declared, his speech slurred.

Patents for what? Alex wondered. A new way to annihilate a sports team?

“I’m telling you this game has to be stopped,” he went on, yelling. “One way or another. You’ve got to shut it down.”

“Harley, I think it’s about to shut itself down,” Charlie said sadly.

“I warned you,” Harley snarled. “This is your own damned fault. They’ve got to...”

“Harley, it would take World War III to call off this game now.”

“Then screw you. I’ve got to deal with it.” He turned and headed off, stumbling toward the ramp.

Alex thought it was as though he was fleeing the scene of his crimes. In his distracted haste, he bumped into a disheartened Wolverine cheerleader, who screamed when she got a look at him. He then flattened her as he flung her out of the way but didn’t appear to even notice.

“Alex,” Charlize hissed as she watched him disappear down the ramp and into the bowels of the stadium, “are you thinking what I’m thinking?”

“He wouldn’t dare.” The consequences were unthinkable.

Now the game picked up again. Seattle had a lucky short pass and got a first down. It was beginning to feel like momentum. They stuck to their air game and came up with another first down on the very next play. They were on the march, and the Seahawk fans were stomping and roaring. Payback time had arrived.

Cap Hunter looked devastated. His professional life—make that death—was flashing before his eyes.

That’s when it happened.

Seattle had just snapped the ball on a first-and-ten from the Wolverine twenty-three when a deep void of blackness enveloped the world.

“My God, Alex.” Charlie’s horrified voice penetrated the total dark. “He did it.”

DAY THIRTEEN: New York

Chapter Thirty-Eight

August 18 Sunday 8:03 PM

Wolverine Stadium, Bronx

Emergency lights immediately popped on in the stadium stairways, illuminating exits, but the field and stands remained pitch black. Charlie’s first panicked thought was that this was the absolute worst-case scenario, the one they’d prayed would never happen. The Wolverines could be about to go a hundred percent predator, and there were no rules for what would come next.

“Alex, are they ready?” she whispered in the direction of the dim silhouette two feet to her right.

“They seemed to be the last time I could still see them. Jesus, this is bad.”

“Let’s go make sure.” She felt her voice tremble. “We’ve got to know.”

After a first, disbelieving silence washed over the stadium there came a collective groan, which quickly grew into mass murmuring and then booing. The initial thing everybody thought was that it was just another Northeast blackout. Here come the candles and the battery radios and the spoiled milk and the warm beer and no subways and no AC or TV.

Then everybody’s consciousness registered the glow in the night sky to the south, from Manhattan, and the fact that lighted buildings were still visible around them, and the obvious sank in. There’d been power failure in the stadium. Seriously rude noises erupted.

Charlie felt her heart pounding as they edged their way over to where the sprayer cart had been. Where was it?

It was gone! Her heart stopped. Had the guys freaked out and split?

Then she noticed a faint headlight streaking away from them, down the wall at the foot of the stands. They were already doing it! Thank God.

Alex had declared that only Allah could predict if their marker would work, but every predator in the world knew its significance. She still had to smile when she thought about the basic concept. Downtown Manhattan had a big urinalysis business and they had a lot of excess specimens that they routinely dumped into the New York sewer system. Charlie arranged that the leftovers instead be loaded into the Wolverines’ herbicide sprayer tank and the backup receptacles. She ended up with six gallons of pure, unadulterated human marker. Using the power sprayer and zippy electric cart, they were now turning the wall separating the field from the spectators into a marked human territorial boundary. Alex claimed it had been known to protect campsites. But here, big gamble.

Next Alex fumbled his way over to the bank of defunct video monitors and felt around till he retrieved the leather case with the Taser he’d stashed there. That was part of Plan B. They both worried about the fact that there wasn’t a Plan C.

“Alex, I feel so helpless,” she declared through the dark. “I’m really scared. We were never around at sunset. My guess is they’re already pumping out some kind of nocturnal-hunter hormones. But we don’t know how the change takes place or how fast it happens or even how you can tell.”

“Well, you can bet Harley knows,” he answered, anger in his voice. “He’s one of them. And now the bastard has put God knows how many people in mortal danger.”

Now cigarette lighters were being held aloft in the stands and the crowd had begun to chant, “LIGHTS! LIGHTS! LIGHTS!”

“Charlie!” Rachel was racing up, a dim outline. “They’re all going to freak out!”

“How long is it going to take? If we get the lights back on soon, can...?”

“The new hormones need just a few minutes to kick in, and after that it’s set for at least two hours,” she wailed. “I saw him experiment on himself once in Bonaire, just to see what it was like. God, it was scary. And afterwards he didn’t remember a thing.”

Alex looked at her shadowy form. Once, Dr. Wu? How about every night?

“LIGHTS! LIGHTS! LIGHTS!” The stadium was pounding ever louder with the rhythm of the chant.

“So, Rach,” Charlie said, her voice raging with disgust, “when the lights come back on—assuming they do—we’re going to be dealing with a whole new scene, right? Guys pumping out the hormones of hybrid predators and ready to kill anything in sight. Except now there’s hope. They’ll still have lousy red cell counts, which might slow them down considerably.”

“That’s the problem,” came the voice in the dark, hesitant. “It . . . it may actually work the other way.”

Charlize just stood a second digesting that, stunned. “What are you talking about?”

“We also did some research on alternative metabolisms,” Rachel mumbled sheepishly. “Another one of Harley’s dandy ideas. To get bursts of energy, some species can temporarily switch their heart over to using glucose instead of fatty acids to get more energy for a given amount of oxygen. They seem to instinctively know just how much they can supercharge their system and for how long.”

“So you’re saying this alternate metabolism could kick in and get around the EPO problem?” She was so dismayed she could barely sputter out the words. “God!”

“For a while,” Rachel said awkwardly through the dark. “It’s just another side effect that suddenly becomes important in a way we hadn’t counted on.”

While Alex was trying to follow this alarming exchange, his instincts were picking up a new feeling in the air. Things must be happening out there on the darkened field that nobody could even imagine.

“LIGHTS! LIGHTS! LIGHTS!” The chant was unrelenting, ominous. He feared it was just stoking the players.

When he turned to check out the stands he suddenly felt a hard fist to his jaw and stumbled backward.

“What…”

“You had them do this, you bastard!” Harley hissed through the dark. “You and her. You knew it would screw up everything I’ve achieved.”

“Harley, you did it.” He rubbed his jaw. He couldn’t see Harley clearly so it was hard to defend himself. “You turned the lights off to make them stop the game. Your new super athletes were starting to fall apart.”

“I wasn’t anywhere near the lights,” he growled, literally. “I was up in the press box. Somebody’s got to spin this screw-up.”

Right. Good story.

“Harley, you criminal, you’re going to get people killed.” Charlize’ voice was livid. “You know better than to shut down the lights and have these monsters you’ve created start prowling this place.”

“Charlie, I didn’t!”

At that very moment, the lights flickered back on. Alex wasn’t sure his feeling of relief was justified. They’d actually been off only three or four minutes, and he speculated that Harley, or whoever, had carefully calibrated the timing for some specific effect. But what?

Upon the return of vision, ripples of cheers rocked the stadium. The grounds guys in charge of the “territorial marker” had just come back and they joined in.

Two cool customers, Alex thought. Little do they know how big a part of our gamble they are. If that marker fails . . . don’t even think about it.

The “zebras” were consulting in mid-field, and after a few moments they announced that they would just scrub the play that had been in progress when the electricity got cut and run it over. The fans cheered their agreement.

But now there was another phenomenon developing. Alex sensed it first in Harley because he was closest. Something about his walk was changing, subtly but noticeably. It was turning into a tightly controlled saunter.

Charlie had caught it too and they exchanged horrified glances.

Looking out, they both had a growing sense that something on the field was headed off the tracks. Several of the Wolverines were doing body slams to pump up their adrenalin, fueling even more hostility and aggression. What did they need that for?

“We’re in for it,” she declared. “God, Alex, they’re starting to go over.”

That was when he noticed two particularly pumped Wolverines pause in their jostling long enough to take offense at something someone in the first row of stands had yelled. They bellowed back. When the fan just heckled more, they both roared and charged.

“Good Christ!” He pointed. “It’s begun.”

She whirled to look. “Oh no!”

When the first three rows realized they were being assaulted by two behemoths with blood in their eyes, they began a terrified scramble to get away, piling over the backs of their seats.

No, Alex thought, that’s “prey behavior.” Don’t.

Then something curiously strange happened. When the two enraged Wolverines were about ten feet from the wall, which they easily could have scaled, they both suddenly slammed to a stop. Then they started milling back and forth along some unseen boundary, sniffing the air and shaking their fists threateningly. Finally they turned and loped back onto the field, snarling.

“It worked,” she whispered triumphantly. “They looked very intimidated. You, Alex Archer, are a genius.”

“Keep your fingers crossed. We’re only at the stage of so far, so good.”

Then the Wolverines all came together in something resembling a huddle except it wasn’t. They were quietly transmogrifying from a team into a pack. Did they even know?

Is the game going to continue? Alex wondered with alarm. Maybe for a couple of plays, but real soon this scene’s going wherever the genes lead it. With that thought he felt a wave of dread wash over him.

Amazingly, the Wolverines managed to line up in defensive formation at the line of scrimmage to resume play. It was as though they were still mixing their behavior—physically predator and mentally human.

Then the game started again, but it was in a new realm. The snarling Wolverines creamed the offensive line on the snap and buried the quarterback before he could even step back and attempt a pass. Buried him viciously. Yellow flags were flying like flushed quail. Unnecessary roughness. A stretcher was quickly hauled onto the field to take the Seattle quarterback off.

“Oh God,” Charlize half sobbed, “this is going lethal. How can we stop it?”

“I don’t think we or anybody can. Yet. They’re holding together for now, but when they finally go over, then maybe . . .”

The Seattle center snapped the ball for the next down. The replacement quarterback did a five-step drop for a pass and got his head handed to him. The Wolverines went through and over anybody who was between them and the passer. Now they were back out to the Wolverine thirty-eight, with fourth and forget-about-it. But they had a terrific field-goal man and they were going to give it a shot.

The Wolverine fans were going wild and the cheerleaders, strawberry blondes in blue and white micro outfits, were doing cartwheels. The stadium rocked as the stands roared for stronger wine and madder music.

Alex couldn’t beat back a sixth sense that this kick was going to be the beginning of the end. He knew it. He actually felt it coming. All the rules were about to go. Time to get Charlie off the field. Now.

And sure enough. When the ball was snapped, the Wolverines surged forward, demolishing the Seattle special teams line. With incredible speed, Tiny Bledsoe actually picked up one guard and tossed him aside, through the air, as though he were a bundle of dry corn stalks.

The place kicker was closing in on the ball when Bledsoe arrived. He scooped the ball off the turf—sending the Seattle player who was teeing it up flying—and cradled it in his left arm. With his right hand, he grabbed the approaching kicker by the throat and flung him straight up and over his own head, letting the kicker’s momentum carry him through space. He landed in a crumpled heap.

Referee whistles erupted everywhere and the air was a blizzard of yellow flags. But none of this attracted the notice of the Wolverines. The action had ceased being football. They were now turning into a hunting pride, ripping off helmets and knocking down the Seattle players over and over again. Alex realized with horror that it was the way predators like to repeatedly down and toy with their prey, getting in a little practice before the windpipe crunch of death.

Their lips now had a curl reminiscent of a snarling beast. Their eyes, dilated from the dark, had narrowed, and become penetrating slits. They were actually growling as they took vicious control of the field.

The Seattle players naturally assumed their opponents had gone mad en masse and now they were just scrambling to escape, scattering and running in all directions. The result was, they were exhibiting “prey” behavior that merely egged on the Wolverines’ altered brains.

Bones were being broken, and one Seattle player was already bleeding from a bite on his neck. My God, Alex thought with growing dismay, they’re gonna start killing and eating people any second now.

By that time, Tiny had made his touchdown, though nobody on the field or in the stands noticed. He’d then victoriously spiked the ball with such force that a seam exploded. But he didn’t yet understand the new state of play. No other Wolverine on the field still remembered this was a football game.

Now the Seattle bench was emptying, reinforcements charging out, which merely meant there were going to be even more casualties.

“Charlie,” he bellowed, “go back behind the bench and stick with those security guards like you lived there.”

“You’d better come too,” she yelled back.

“When I can.” He turned and spotted Hunter. “Cap, get those damned dogs going!”

But two security guards were already ripping away the concealing tarps and opening the traveling kennels. The Shepherds came lunging out, though they initially seemed confused about what, exactly, they were supposed to do. They saw a bunch of creatures that looked like humans but exuded the scent and sweat-drenched hormones of some strange mix of predators. Were they supposed to protect the real humans, or join these other weird creatures in the hunt?

Charlie, along with Rachel, had surrounded herself with security guards. She glanced at the stands and realized they held every human emotion, from shock to fear, from roaring to sobbing. Parts of the crowd, presumably the hardcore fans, were howling for blood while families with children were scrambling for the exits. In between, others were madly screaming at the field, begging them to stop. Watching it all, Charlize felt so helpless and distraught she was shaking.

The dogs’ confusion lasted only a second or two. Harley’s predator creations took them for scavenging jackals that were trying to horn in on a kill and viciously attacked them. That clarified the Shepherds’ thinking and they immediately reverted to their own latent wild-dog instincts. They would isolate a Wolverine, circle him, and lunge. The Wolverine would bat them away a time or two, then grab one and close his jaws on its neck, shutting down the windpipe. The dog would go limp and twitch, and then the player would give it a vicious shake and finish it off by snapping its neck.

“Shit,” Cap muttered, “they’re gonna get through killing the dogs and then they’re gonna remember us.”

Though Cap’s private guard service had created a protective cordon around the bench and any civilians near it, they’d made no effort to go out onto the field. Charlie was secretly thankful for that, wanting all the protection she could get. She also figured they’d decided that what happened in mid-field was Seattle’s problem. Getting themselves ripped apart trying to save somebody who hadn’t hired them wasn’t part of their job description. That’s why God made 911.

With the stadium in increasing pandemonium, some of the fans now emitting sympathetic animal howls, the coaching staff finally got around to ordering the Wolverine cheerleaders, mesmerized with terror, to flee to their dressing room and lock all doors. They were gone in a flash, pom-poms abandoned on the FieldTurf.

Alex spotted Harley Ryan prowling up and down the sidelines, emitting a string of snarls, and twisting his head menacingly. But he seemed to be resisting any urge to join the others.

Now Cap was charging toward him. “Harley, you bastard, I’m a mind to kill you with my own bare hands right now. I want you to damned well get out there and shut this down. You claimed you’re the man to handle them, so go and do it.”

For a moment, Harley bristled at the confrontation and looked like he was going to attack Cap, but then the human genes still minimally controlling his brain kicked in and he stopped himself. Instead, he turned around and looked up at the stands, which were still emptying in panic.

Next, he turned back and gazed at the deadly riot on the field for a long moment. Finally, he emitted a blood-curdling sound, somewhere between a roar and a scream. He seemed to change physically, like a computer CGI movie transformation where a human dissolves into an ogre, all the alien genes kicking in. Then he loped out, growling.

The guy’s about to experience some reality contact, Alex thought, staring after him. He thinks he’s the alpha male. That’s a theory that is yet to be verified.

Then his eye caught something else. There was a diminutive woman on the field yelling at a Wolverine—he later learned it was Tiny Bledsoe—as though trying to get his attention.

Bledsoe would just glance at her and snarl, then continue pummeling a Seattle player.

Alex turned and called over. “Charlie, do you see that woman out there? She’s about to get herself killed. She has no idea what’s happened to these guys. I’ve got to get her out of there.”

“You can’t, it’s too . . . she’s trying to signal Tiny. I forbid you to set foot out there. I didn’t go through all we’ve been through only to watch you be eaten alive.”

“Don’t worry. They’ll be sure to kill me first. But somebody’s gotta get her off the field. She’s about to be collateral damage.” He was opening his case of distraction tools, including a Taser and a charged-up cattle prod.

Just then, Harley’s approaching scent reached a group of Wolverines and he was giving off all the wrong signals. His arrival was a challenge to their dominance of their territory. Tiny Bledsoe saw him coming and reared up like a bear on its hind legs. He even pawed the air. The woman who’d been yelling at him screamed in alarm but he took no notice.

“Alex,” Charlize yelled, “Harley’s screwing up. Tiny thinks he’s being challenged.”

“He is.”

“If you go out there, you’re going to get yourself killed too. Don’t do it.”

“If I don’t help that woman, then why the hell am I here! I don’t see Cap’s big-deal security guards lifting a finger.”

In some prides, he reasoned, you can bluff the alpha male and then the rest will back off. Then again, sometimes it doesn’t work.

She was right. If he blew this one, he could well end up a casualty of Harley’s obscene handiwork.

Charlize was still yelling at him to not go when he seized the Taser in his right hand and the cattle prod in his left and headed out. This could end up hand-to-hand, he thought. He had to not let them know he was experiencing stark, bone-numbing terror.

DAY THIRTEEN: New York

Chapter Thirty-Nine

August 18 Sunday 8:37 PM

Wolverine Stadium, The Bronx

“No!” Charlize watched horrified as Alex stalked onto the field, heading directly for the melee surrounding Tiny Bledsoe.

“Damn him.” Then one last time, at the top of her lungs. “Alex, you’re-going-to-get-killed.”

If he heard her, he gave no sign.

“Damn him.”

She realized how much she’d really, really missed him all those years and how happy she was to have him show up again. Now he was about to go and get himself killed, or maybe just maimed beyond recognition.

Funny thing, while she’d been concentrating on how Harley was screwing up her life and her work, Alex had been focused on all the people Harley might end up destroying. It made her realize yet again how special he was.

Maybe he could save that crazy woman, who surely was Tiny’s wife. It was certain nobody else was going to bother.

As she watched him disappear into the yelling, brawling mob, she couldn’t help feeling her heart clutch. Would she ever see him again?

Yes, she would because, by God, she was going out there too. They’d come this far together and she wasn’t going to bail on him. She’d bluffed some crazed Wolverines once at the lab on Bonaire, so she had a track record. Now she might just have to do it again. If she were out there, maybe she could help him drag that deranged woman off the field.

Whatever happened, if he was going down, she was going with him.

She pushed her way through the startled security guards and started marching toward the field.

*****

Having watched the Wolverines in action, Alex had concluded that the hulking lineman Charlize had called Tiny, who had scored the last touchdown and was now being yelled at by the woman, was the alpha—the leader of the pack. And sure enough he was the one Harley—who doubtless had a sense for these things—had made a beeline for, striding toward him and exuding apparent confidence.

“Make them stop this,” he shouted. “Damn it, Tiny you’re screwing up everything.”

Alex watched as Bledsoe’s eyes narrowed menacingly. And his bulk seemed to swell, if such a thing were still possible.

“Harley,” Alex yelled, “Don’t get too close. Don’t invade his space. He’s got a perimeter. Don’t stress him.”

Harley had no interest in advice. But he had the right instincts. When he got within ten feet of Tiny, he paused and began to circle him.

The half-empty stands had grown quieter now, as though a sense of shock had settled in. This wasn’t sport: It was grown men trying to kill other men. And these uncontrollable murderers were only yards away.

Alex fleetingly reflected that the arrival of Harley in mid-field had shuffled the dynamic. He represented a new challenge to the Wolverines’ authority, providing a distraction that might save other lives. They all stopped and focused on him, waiting to see what direction Tiny would take.

Now the fearless woman who had been doing all the yelling was charging past Harley and right up to Tiny, in his face. He looked startled and examined her with a confused expression, as though he recognized her from somewhere but couldn’t quite place the face.

“Baby, I’m gettin’ you the hell out of here. Right this minute. I told you not to play tonight, you headstrong idiot, but would you listen to me? Now look at you. I get my hands on that damned Buck Press . . .”

Got to be his wife, Alex realized. And she’s moved in between him and Harley. That was not a safe location at the moment.

She continued yelling, screaming for him to get the hell off the field. Finally he drew back and slapped her hard, sending her reeling onto her knees.

This is bad, Alex thought. He’s going to attack her next.

Seizing on Bledsoe’s momentary disorientation over the woman, Alex rushed him and got close enough, within fifteen feet, to Tase him, the full hit of 50,000 volts. He was afraid it would be like trying to bring down an elephant with a slingshot but it seemed to work. Tiny jolted backward with a howl and then dropped on one side.

Harley emitted a leery growl and backed away.

While Bledsoe was still down, Alex grabbed the woman’s arm and pulled her to her feet.

“Let go of me, you bastard!” She tried to twist away.

“You’re about to get killed. So try not to get me killed too.” He started dragging her toward the sidelines.

He’d progressed ten feet when four of the other Wolverines advanced on them, blood in their eyes.

Don’t show fear, he thought, digging into the last remnants of his courage. It would have been so easy just to let go of the woman, what she wanted, and bail.

Instead, he zapped the closest Wolverine with the electric prod. The charge went straight through the spandex and he yelped and jumped back. Then the other three began to circle warily.

“Come on,” he barked at the woman. “We have got to keep moving.”

“Screw you.” She continued to struggle

Meanwhile, the remaining dogs had changed their strategy and were sniping, more like hyenas. They would dart in for a flying slash at one of the Wolverines and then dodge away. It was a wear-them-down-before-the-kill strategy. And it appeared to be working. Although the Wolverines had total control of the field by this time, they were slowing down.

But they were still a menace. Now more of the others were coming up and beginning to circle.

Oh shit, he thought. I just got popular.

He had the cattle prod in his right hand now and gripped the wrist of the yelling woman with his left. He looked back to check on Harley, who still was posturing toward Tiny. But he’d lost his focus.

Maybe, Alex thought, he’s in some genetic twilight zone, unsure which species he should identify with.

No! Another Wolverine was starting to rush him.

He zapped him with the prod but this player merely growled and slapped at it.

Uh oh!

He zapped him again more forcefully and this time the Wolverine staggered backward, righted himself, and charged.

I’m a dead man. He tried to push the woman behind him to protect her.

But at that moment, one of the remaining German Shepherds flew through the air, seized the player’s throat, and brought him down. Together they flailed onto the FieldTurf. The startled crowd started cheering for the dog.

It cleared a temporary path out of the circle of predators and Alex used the moment to start slowly heading toward the security guards by the Wolverine bench, practically dragging the cursing woman, ceding territory only gradually so as not to give the sense they were fleeing.

“What are you doing?” she yelled, still trying to writhe out of his grip. “I need to get–”

He heard a loud slap and the struggle stopped. He looked to see Charlize, who had a hammerlock around the woman’s neck.

He felt a rush, seeing her again. And she’d arrived just in the nick of time. He couldn’t keep on top of all that was going on by himself.

“I almost didn’t get away,” she declared. “When I’d try to come out, the security guys kept freaking and chasing me and pulling me back.”

“Thank God you’re here. This thing has gone completely to hell.” He wanted to give her a hug. Why was she risking herself like this?

“We’re going to back out of here now, missy,” Charlie informed the squabbling woman. “And please shut up. All that noise just attracts them. You’ll get us all killed.”

Together they were inching toward the sidelines when Alex noticed Harley, out in midfield, suddenly charge Bledsoe . . . who was still dazed from the Taser and just lifting himself up off the FieldTurf. He jumped Tiny, sinking his teeth into his neck. The scene reeked of animal stench and hot breath.

With a growl, Bledsoe whipped around, grabbed him, and flung him to the ground. Harley had finally engaged and the conclusion looked foregone.

“Harley, what the hell are you doing,” Alex yelled. He doubted if Harley even heard him.

Alex was so focused on his own problems that he’d failed to notice a subtle change in the chaos around them. A couple of Wolverines had dropped to their knees. He did a double take and examined them more closely. In the brilliant stadium lights, they were beginning to look oddly pale. He guessed that the temporary metabolism switch brought about by the activation of the predator genes was winding down. Now some of the Seattle players were moving in on them.

Meanwhile the two German Shepherds that hadn’t had their necks broken were chewing on a moaning Wolverine, who Alex realized was the quarterback Dutch Mathis.

“Stop it,” he yelled, and then turned back to Charlie. “Here, can you hold her for a second?”

“I’ll try.”

“Those damned dogs have outlived their usefulness. Maybe I can pull them off.”

“God, be careful. They’ll just eat you too.”

“I have a way with Shepherds.”

He was halfway to Mathis and the dogs when a uniformed stadium security guard brushed by him with a drawn Glock.

Where the hell were you when we needed you, pal? Alex thought bitterly.

Three shots rang out and that was the end of the dogs. Dutch ended up with stitches in the triple digits.

The referees had long since retreated to a cowering huddle in the end zone. But now that the danger seemed slowed a notch, Cap Hunter and Buck Press came charging onto the field. Press was yelling animatedly into his cell phone. Alex suspected he was trying to unwind his offshore bookmaker positions or make some preemptive arrangements before the news of this total cock-up hit the wires. The game was over. Nobody “won.” Would anybody besides bookies care?

After Press clicked off his phone, he yelled at Harley.

“Damn it,” he drawled, “what the hell’s come over this damn team?”

“You!” Bledsoe snarled and let go of Harley and charged him. He seized Press by the neck, strangling him as he lifted him off the ground. The cell phone went flying.

When is this going to end? Alex thought ruefully. It just keeps getting worse.

Grasping the electric prod, he stalked back and, knowing right away that it was a bad idea, zapped Bledsoe. Tiny dropped Press—who crumpled to the ground—long enough to grab the prod, wrest it out of Alex’ hands, and wrap it around his neck. Then Tiny lifted him up over his head and slammed him down.

He felt something in his left shoulder snap and felt a crack in his rib cage. When he tried to get up, he realized his left arm was useless.

“Jesus!” He looked down at his left arm dangling. There was enough shock that the pain didn’t set in for a few moments.

He could have killed me, or broken my neck. I got off easy.

Tiny immediately lost interest in him, turned, and seized Press again, once more by the throat.

Alex knew at once he’d just lost a collarbone and he figured a couple of ribs were going to need rehab. Then, out of the corner of his eye, he saw Harley rush Tiny again, shaking lose Buck Press, who slumped onto the FieldTurf unconscious. As Harley tangled with Tiny, they seemed to be dancing in slow motion, struggling just to stay standing. Around them, the fighting was all but over, after a few last kicks by Seattle.

He painfully pulled himself to his feet just as a soft hand seized his. “Let me help you.”

He whirled to see Charlie. Fortunately, she’d taken his right hand, the side where the arm was still attached to his body by an intact bone. He wasn’t sure this part of the field was safe yet, but here she was. Saving his chestnuts again.

“Look out. I’m damaged goods.” He began disengaging himself from the remains of the cattle prod using his good arm. He was feeling nauseated and was starting to shiver. He was blinking to make sure he was conscious.

“Alex, I saw that. My heart stopped. Are you all right?”

“I’m talking, I can move, so maybe I’ll live. I think he just rearranged parts of my bone structure. What about that crazy woman.”

“I turned her over to security. You saved her life. If he’d done to her what he did to you . . .”

She looked pityingly at his dangling arm and made a sad face. Then she gazed around at the Wolverines, now mostly trying to protect themselves from the Seattle counter assault. Some of them were down on their all fours on the FieldTurf, animal-like, wheezing, while Seattle players, those still able, were kicking and pummeling them.

“Alex, try to stay conscious because we’ve got a big problem. I talked to Rachel. She thinks their metabolism is getting mixed signals. They could be about to start dying. They don’t know their hearts are completely running out of oxygen. She’s called 911 three times and she’s trying to get the medics to bring out as many oxygen tanks as they can find. And masks. Any minute now they could start having pulse irregularities.” She hugged him. “God, how did we get mixed up in this disaster?”

“We were really stupid, that’s how. But I wouldn’t have missed it.”

Now blue and white ambulances were streaming onto the field, sirens blaring. Charlie and Rachel began running from one to the next telling them to break out the oxygen as quickly as possible. Alex checked on Buck Press and he was still breathing and had a pulse, probably in a lot better shape than some of the players. He summoned a medic to bring a stretcher.

Then he noticed Tiny Bledsoe lying sprawled across Harley, who didn’t look like he was breathing. He yelled for Charlie and, fighting back his own pain, used his right hand to help her pull Bledsoe off him. Bledsoe was just in an oxygen-deprivation swoon, like many of the other players, and Alex called for a medic to bring a mask.

Charlize started giving Harley mouth-to-mouth.

“Come on, breathe,” she muttered between gulps of air. “Breathe, you bastard.”

Then he started to stir and half a minute later, a paramedic rushed up and took over.

Alex finally slumped onto the ground, watching EMTs load unconscious players into ambulances. His body was throbbing with pain, but as he looked around, in his head he couldn’t shut out a lyric from a Doors anthem, “This is the end, my friend.”

DAY SEVENTEEN: New Jersey

Coda

Thursday August 22, 11:01 AM

Nolan Pharma, NJ

At the helm of her Prius, Charlize gazed through the windshield at the entrance of the Holland Tunnel, headed for Nolan Pharmaceuticals’ main office and lab in New Jersey.

Lamar’s a lying shit, she thought, him making noises like he had no idea. He was in on it up to his neck. Then the next thing he’ll do will be try to spread the blame over everybody in Gene-Tech. She was going to personally spike that red herring here and now.

She shivered involuntarily remembering the disaster. At times it felt like the entire world had gone mad and humankind been expelled from the Garden of Innocence, while she and Alex were the only survivors with the full knowledge of Good and Evil.

All night and all the next day cable television couldn’t stop showing clips of the game and the aftermath. She’d watched in déjà vu horror, while the nation at large was merely dumbstruck at footage of a football game where dogs chewed people and people chewed dogs, then each other. Theories spewed everywhere, from sports “color” commentators to pop psychologists. The breathless report in the Good Grey Times was above the fold. She was particularly amused by the Page Six report in the Post that “Sixty Minutes” was well along on a segment for next Sunday but still couldn’t identify the guy with the Taser who had rescued the woman, apparently the wife of one of the players. Nobody got a close-up of him.

However, she also was deeply upset that three Wolverine players had died shortly after being taken away in ambulances. Though the autopsy couldn’t explain why—it seemed they’d just mysteriously asphyxiated—she felt partly responsible. What if she’d done more to try and stop Harley? She consoled herself that at least she’d helped Rachel to immediately give the surviving team members a massive infusion of synthetic EPO to reverse what Harley had done to their red cell count. It surely saved their lives.

The Tuesday after the game disaster, Rachel flew back to Bonaire to be with Tim and to disappear from the reach of a criminal investigation. Charlize still secretly had Harley’s data file, but for the record she was working on muscular dystrophy at Downtown Manhattan, period. She crossed her fingers and told Alex that if anybody ever asked, her secret trip to sunny Bonaire was just a diving vacation.

The thought of how many people Harley Ryan had screwed up made her blood boil. For starters, since the Wolverines had ceased to exist as a functioning sports entity, their season was immediately cancelled. The NFL blamed Cap Hunter and the entire Wolverine coaching staff for what had happened and was sufficiently displeased that they were banned from the league for the rest of the season. That struck her as grossly unfair but when she called Cap with condolences, he let her know that he, at least, was positively relieved. He’d been an overworked burnout for so long he couldn’t remember what it was like to have a life. Now he could try. His only regret was that he didn’t get a chance to strangle Harley Ryan with his own two hands.

Hoping for some better news, she and Alex caught a TV appearance by Buck Press, a heavily promoted interview on ESPN, where he announced he’d declared Chapter 11 bankruptcy and taken up residence in his palatial Palm Beach “homestead,” which by Florida law was beyond reach of his creditors. He didn’t have the slightest idea why his boys all suddenly lost their cool out there on the field. Maybe a Seattle mole slipped something into everybody’s Gatorade.

On the other hand, she was dismayed by New York tabloid reports that “Tiny” Bledsoe and two other Wolverine players were facing charges for criminal assault. What they’d done, it was alleged, in the melee on the field went way beyond “unnecessary roughness.” They’d hired a defense team and begun giving depositions that declared something causing extreme behavior modification had been done to them in Bonaire, though standard blood-tests showed nothing. They were hoping to blame what happened on Gene-Tech’s Dr. Harley Ryan—if they could find him to serve him a subpoena.

She was actually relieved that Harley had disappeared without a trace. As long as his encrypted data remained that way, nobody had actual proof that there’d even been a clinical trial. Lamar Nolan emphatically dismissed speculation his company’s research lab in Bonaire had somehow been entangled with the Wolverines more deeply than just a few routine blood tests while the team was training there. If Dr. Harley Ryan, whose firm, Gene Solutions, was a recent acquisition by Nolan Pharma, had run some kind of rogue experiment behind the company’s back, management had been kept in the dark about it.

The only positive thing to come out of the last two weeks was to realize how glorious it was to have Alex Archer back. The fact was, Alex was a mensch and life had offered her another chance with him. She’d decided she wanted to take that chance this time around. Alex, in his laid-back way, represented for her the road not taken, and that road seemed to have landed him a long way down the road toward a place of peace. Not to mention he was a breath of fresh air in some other vital departments.

The swamp called the “Meadowlands” flashed by and before long, she reached the Nolan Pharma campus.

After she signed in at the security lobby, the guard motioned for her to wait a second.

“You’re Dr. Russell, right? I’ve got something for you.”

He rummaged in his desk, then handed her a plain white envelope with just her name typed on the front. Alarmed, she ripped it open and pulled out a single blank sheet of paper with “D-122” typed on it. That gave her a very bad feeling.

“Who left this?”

“Some mail boy dropped it off.”

D-122 was the location of Harley Ryan’s old lab, down at the end of the “D” wing. It was the last place she wanted to go, but somebody else had a different idea. Looks like an offer I can’t refuse, she thought, feeling a tinge of dismay.

When she reached the door, she discovered that her Gene-Tech magnetic card no longer unlocked it. That felt even more ominous.

Then she looked up and noticed a new security camera. It wasn’t there before. Either it was a new level of security, or somebody wanted to keep tabs on when whoever was in there came and went. Either way, not a good sign.

Then without warning a buzzer sounded. She jumped, startled, and then she reached for the door handle.

When she stepped in, the room was dark and she was greeted by a snarl from somewhere in the back.

My God, she thought, hesitating, is he here? She felt a surge of fear but stood her ground and finally closed the door behind her with a slam, wondering if she would ever walk out of it. But, as Alex loved to preach, to turn and bolt would be “prey” behavior.

“Harley, is that you?”

There was a wheezing of breath and something that sounded like a low hiss.

“Come out where I can see you.” None of the noises she’d heard were human. Also, there was a dank smell in the air, something like a locker room with bad hygiene.

Slowly the figure appeared, materializing out of the gloom.

Oh my God.

He was terrifying. It was like a transformation out of Kafka’s Metamorphosis. He seemed to be only technically human. He hadn’t shaved since the fateful game and his hair was matted against his scalp. There was a furtive wildness in his eyes and his fingernails were ragged and dirty.

“Nobody told me you were coming,” Harley growled, “but we need to talk.”

She felt her pulse race as he continued to move menacingly toward her.

“I guess Lamar wanted me to see you.” She caught herself backing up and stopped. “Harley, what in God’s name is going on?”

“I’m free now,” he declared with another hiss. “I’m recreating myself to be whatever I choose to be. I live out here now, in the woods. I’m only in the lab during the day.”

“Good Christ.” She felt herself shiver. “Does Lamar know –?”

“I’m not talking to him. I’m going back to Bonaire and I’m going to start my own research project. He’ll never get my data. He can’t stop me.”

She looked at him in the dim light and wondered how close he was to attacking her and ripping her apart. He looked like he wasn’t sure himself as his eyes shifted back and forth and he began to pace.

“Harley, if you’re lucky, you’ll merely kill yourself. If you’re not lucky, you’ll cease being human.”

“You could come with me,” he declared. “We could create a new world.”

She stared at him, becoming a shaggy animal virtually before her eyes. It made her want to scream, because of him and at him. “This is not going forward, this is going backward.”

“You don’t understand the power I have now. Evolution can take millions of years; but I can assemble a whole new species literally in a day. Together we could create the perfect human.” He twisted around and emitted a low growl, then turned back. “Or a blend of the best of all species—and it could all be done in a lab. We could start with ourselves. Look at me. I’m already half way there.”

Her pulse speeded up even more.

“Harley, you’re being played. Why do you think Nolan let you back in here? He’s already got what he wants from you. Think.”

“Get out!” He was moving on her with a scalpel, his eyes flashing red. “This time nobody’s going to screw up my work.”

She stifled a scream, then turned and plunged out the door. The scene was like a hallucination; beyond anything she was capable of imagining. Harley Ryan was turning himself into an unprecedented new species, all right, one that was totally mad and uncontrollable.

As she raced down the hall, she found herself realizing why Lamar Nolan wanted her to see him. It was to reinforce a point. The Wolverine game had been a disaster and now Harley Ryan was a loose cannon. So why not let him continue transgenic work on himself till he self-destructed? And by letting her see Harley’s meltdown for herself, Lamar Nolan was letting her know he had his bases covered.

Marcia waved her through his outer office and there Nolan was, sitting calm as a Bodhisattva, his face illuminated by the pale glow of his desk lamp, seemingly in another world.

“Turns out your Gene Solutions was a ‘late stage acquisition’,” he mumbled, then he roared. “You were secretly doing transgenic work when I acquired you. It was well down the pipeline, late stage. But I had no way of knowing. You all lied to me.”

“What are you talking about?” She realized he was clearly bent on confronting her before she could confront him.

“That’s what happened,” he persisted. “You’d already done all this trans work before Gene-Tech acquired Gene Solutions. We acquired you because we thought you were getting close to clinical trials on other work. Nobody had any idea Harley and the rest of you were going to use our Bonaire lab for . . . secret clinical trials on your work.”

She felt her blood boil. She’d been expecting something like this but it was maddening to hear it to her face.

But you don’t play poker by blowing your top.

“So Gene-Tech is like Enron.” She calmly took an unoffered chair. “The guys in charge had no idea what their company was actually doing right under their nose. And I guess having Harley work offshore will protect you from any U.S. jurisdiction. But what about the laws on...?”

“Well, he didn’t actually break any local laws either. You see, the Netherlands Antilles doesn’t have an FDA. It’s times like this that that proves very useful.”

“Well, I’ve seen what you’ve done to Harley,” she declared, getting up, “so I don’t think we’ve got anything left to talk about. You and Harley can work it out. Or what’s left of him. But you’d be making a big mistake to drag my work at Downtown into this. I know where a lot of bodies are buried. Have a nice day.”

“Please sit down,” he said, gesturing. “We’ve got plenty to talk about. I wanted to get you with the new program as soon as possible. I’ve got a deal in the works with Genomics, Ltd., of Johannesburg, to spin off your old company, Gene Solutions, Harley’s illicit data and all. I want it out of here. As soon as we ink the deal, you will decrypt and clean up a set of his data—I know you can—and deliver it to them and help them pick up where he left off. They’ve already signed a contract with . . . shall we say there are interested parties all over the world. Their first clients are Swiss mercenaries. I don’t want to get into specifics.”

She suddenly wanted to slug him. He was going to drag her back into this!? Fuggedaboutit. Ice cubes in Hell had a better chance. She was getting out of Harley’s disaster now.

“Sorry, but I don’t really think that’s going to happen.” The more she thought about it, the more she seethed. “You can sell my contract to some slime-ball outfit in South Africa but you can’t make me honor it.”

“I said I’m selling them my controlling interest in your old company Gene Solutions. Your five-year contract with me was stand-alone, remember? I’m having Genomics strip it out and sell it back to me the minute you’ve got them up to speed.”

Very clever, she thought with chagrin. You’ve unloaded Harley’s illegal clinical-trial data, which could land you in prison, but you’re keeping the promising legit work. My work. You creep.

“So you conned the South Africans with Harley’s pipe dreams.” She had to admire the duplicitous . . . “How much did you get?”

“Let’s just say I got a lot more than Harley was planning for Nolan Pharma to get after he skipped with the data. You know, it’s a little insulting to be thought of as a sucker by a quartet of young hotshots. Harley was getting ready to try and fleece me.” He smiled at her look of surprise. “You didn’t know? Or maybe you just didn’t know I knew. Hey, I don’t have hackers for nothing. But then he screwed up and blew the EPO levels. So when they all began losing their performance there in the stadium because of oxygen deprivation, I had to have the lights killed to shut down the disaster and protect my investment.”

“You killed the lights?” She was stunned. Turned out he was even more ruthless than she’d possibly imagined. Her heart sank.

“It bought them a second wind, just long enough to…”

“No, it caused them to turn predator and stopped the game while they were still leading. Which is what you really wanted. You knew they’d tear up the field and attack when the lights came back on. It financially and professionally ruined everybody involved. The players, the owner, the coaching staff, even Harley. Everybody, that is, except you.”

“Sometimes, when you’re in the business of saving a company, you just have to do whatever it takes.”

My God, she thought, he was at least three chess moves ahead of everybody. She felt on the verge of being overwhelmed.

“Just one small problem. Right now, you’ve got a side effects disaster. Rachel doesn’t have the experience to fix it and God knows Tim can’t. And Harley barely knows what planet he’s on. So, you don’t have a functioning product, and Harley’s data aren’t worth zip till you do. You’ve got nothing to sell.”

“Fortunately, I’ve got a feeling you can figure out how to fix that,” he said, “and you still work for me.”

“Don’t be so sure about that. I work for my patients.” She rose and stormed out the door, ready to chew nails. She could barely be civil to Marcia as she whisked through the reception area.

It was a good thing she was going to see Alex tonight. These days he was about all that kept her head on straight.

*****

“How was that?” she asked, snuggling up to him from the right side of the bed. His left arm was strapped to his body. Otherwise, he was wearing nothing.

“Better than Novocane.” He was wasted, in every sense. His apartment was a mess since he’d barely been there since they got back and then he got trashed at the game.

“You deserved some R&R.”

He put his right arm around her and pulled her to him. It was the first thing resembling sex since the game and he felt like he got more than he gave. He vowed to even things out as soon as his body would permit.

“I’m so glad I have you,” she said after a moment, her eyes turning soft, “because before this is over I may not have much else.”

“Looks to me like you’ve got some leverage.” He held her tighter. “If Harley’s lost his lease on sanity, then you’re the only one left who can access his data. If Nolan tries to screw you, you can still publish it and show the world what really happened.”

“For now that’s the stick. For Lamar, I also could use a carrot.” She was getting up. A sliver of moonlight from the window bathed her body in silver. He thought it gorgeous. “I’m going to get a glass of white wine. Want some?”

“Thanks. I could use it.”

She padded into the kitchen and there came the clank of glasses, the sound of the refrigerator door opening and closing, and then . . .

“Shit!”

“What is it?”

“Alex, you’ve got a mouse in your kitchen. He’s on the counter, looking at me. Like I should feed him.”

“Don’t worry about it. I named him Dennis. We’re both bachelors at the moment and I give him peanuts from time to time when he looks hungry.”

She was coming back with the wine glasses. “I’ve worked with mice in the lab, but I just as soon they stayed . . .”

Her voice was trailing off as she handed him a glass.

“Jesus, why didn’t I think of that!”

“What?”

“A mouse. God, I’m so stupid.” She was growing animated.

“What are you talking about?” He was rubbing his bandages. They already itched.

“Something that happened at Wake Forest a while back. A post-doc was injecting mice with cancer cells when she noticed a certain mouse refused to get with the program, repeatedly. Every time it got injected, its white blood cells just surrounded the tumor cells and ruptured them. The study director shrugged it off and told her to double the dose. Still no tumors. Then they bred the mouse and the trait bred true. This mouse had a gene somewhere that had a thing about identifying and eliminating cancer cells. Then when they injected its cells into other mice that already had tumors, they killed the cancers there too. Everybody hopes there could be some gene like it in humans, but nobody has found it yet.”

Alex winced as he sat up and took a sip of white wine, “That sounds like the Holy Grail.”

“Your mouse Dennis just gave me a brainstorm. Why not do what Harley did, go transgenic, only with, say, that special mouse gene? In somebody who has terminal cancer, I think the FDA could be talked into it. Maybe Harley’s transgenic stunt could open a new door in medicine.”

He smiled and leaned over and kissed her. “I love it when you talk raunchy.”

She kissed him back, distractedly, brimming with excitement. “You know, Harley broke every ethics rule in the book and now he’s a doomed soul. But what’s in his data could be the basis for . . . who can even imagine what.”

He took a thoughtful sip of his wine. “But what happens when you go all the way to playing God? Maybe we’ve already seen that movie, and nobody was wild about the ending.”

“Look, half of all medicine now is playing God.” She was getting more and more revved.

“I’ll back you all the way.”

“Okay then,” she smiled, turning back to him, still brimming, “that’s taken care of. Now what about us?”

Thomas Hoover

Thomas Hoover began his writing career with two classic non-fiction books on Far Eastern art (Zen Culture, Random House, 1977), and religion (The Zen Experience, Penguin, 1980). He then moved into fiction writing with two critically acclaimed novels about English sailors in the early Seventeenth century, one set in India (The Moghul, Doubleday, 1983) and one in the Caribbean (Caribbee, Doubleday, 1985).

From these beginnings as a fiction writer, he branched into several new areas. The first was a Wall Street financial thriller (The Samurai Strategy, Bantam Books, 1988) and two techno-thrillers depicting very powerful experimental airplanes operating at the edge of space (Project Daedalus, Bantam Books, 1991 and Project Cyclops, Bantam Books, 1992).

His most recent novels have examined topics at the cutting edge of medicine—genetics (Life Blood, Kensington, 2000) and stem cells (Syndrome, Kensington, 2003). A third medical thriller, The Alpha Gene, concerning DNA manipulation, will be produced by Fireship Press in late 2010, along with a republication of his earlier works.

Along the way, critics have compared his historical novels to those of James Clavell and James A. Mitchner, and his novels have twice been optioned for TV mini-series production.

“Back in the dim mists of time,” as he describes it, he also acquired a doctorate in oceanography and later served as senior vice president of an architect-engineering firm in New York, where he has lived for several decades. His vices include being an avid sailor and a recognized collector of the classical music of India.

If you liked

The Touchdown Gene

don’t miss Thomas Hoover’s

Other Medical Thrillers…

Coming in 2011

from Fireship Press

LIFE BLOOD

It lies hidden deep in the mist-shrouded rain forest of Central America.  A place where a brilliant doctor fulfills dreams for some – and creates chilling nightmares for others.

Now, filmmaker Morgan James is about to journey straight into the heart of a dark conspiracy. Where a bizarre human experiment comes at a terrible price, and where she may be the next to pay with her . . . Life Blood.

SYNDROME

They were promised a miracle cure for the deadly diseases destroying their lives.  It seemed too good to be true, but to the desperate and dying it was the only chance for survival.

Now they’re part of a bizarre secret experiment that reverses the aging process – an experiment gone out of control.  To stop the madness, one woman must enter a shocking nightmare world, where scientists control your body – and your mind – and living makes you beg for death.

———————————-

The Moghul

by

Thomas Hoover

“...the finest book on India since Kipling.”

India 1620: India is ruled by the son of the great Akbar, and is about to pass his crown to one of his sons. Brian Hawksworth, ship's captain and emissary of King James, must choose sides, but will he choose correctly? The future of England, and of India, depend on it.

He had come to India to open trade for “barbaric” England and squeeze out the Portuguese, who try to kill him at every opportunity. But once on land, he becomes captivated by the country and the people. The beauty and romance of the exquisite Moghul Empire seduce him from his material goals to a new quest for supreme sensuality in music, mystical visions, and sacred lovemaking.

From pulse-pounding sea battles, to tiger hunts, war elephants, harems and forbidden love—The Moghul takes you on a breath-taking tour of the India that existed before the British Raj.

“Grand adventure, firmly plotted, well told… an excellent novel.”

Los Angeles Times

“A fine old-fashioned adventurous read…”

Cleveland Plain Dealer

Interesting • Informative • Authoritative

All Fireship Press books are available

directly through www.FireshipPress.com, amazon.com

and via leading bookstores and wholesalers from coast-to-coast

———————————-

Caribbee

by

Thomas Hoover

The Untold Story of the First American Revolution

Barbados, 1648:  The lush and deadly Caribbean paradise, domain of rebels and freeholders, of brigands, bawds and buccaneers. Where the flames of revolution exploded a full 130 years before engulfing the American mainland. And where a dark, enslaved race secretly practiced the mysterious rites of a distant continent while daring to whisper the forbidden word... “Freedom.”

This is the sweeping tale of Hugh Winston, lusty, swashbuckling captain of The Defiance, and the lovely, tempestuous firebrand Katherine Bedford; the two trapped in a bloody pitched battle against the overwhelming forces of British tyranny. A story of love and betrayal, of slavery, war, piracy in the exotic land that gave birth to the fiery American ideal of “Liberty or Death.”

From the splendor of Barbados, to the rain forests of Tortuga, to the battle-scarred Jamaican coast, a magnificent novel of a time, a place, and a people you will never forget.

"An action-crammed, historically factual novel... In the epic tradition of James Clavell and James A. Mitchner…”

-  Publisher's Weekly

Interesting • Informative • Authoritative

All Fireship Press books are now available

directly through www.FireshipPress.com, amazon.com

and via leading bookstores and wholesalers from coast-to-coast

Table of Contents

Title Page

Copyright

Bonaire

BOOK ONE

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

BOOK TWO

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Chapter Thirty

Chapter Thirty-One

Chapter Thirty-Two

Chapter Thirty-Three

Chapter Thirty-Four

Chapter Thirty-Five

Chapter Thirty-Six

BOOK THREE

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Chapter Thirty-Nine

Coda

About the Author

Other Fine Books by Thomas Hoover