“Volunteers, of course,” VJ said. “But there will be plenty of time to give you the details later.”
   Volunteers? Victor’s head reeled. Didn’t VJ realize he couldn’t blithely experiment with real people? There were laws to think of, ethics. But the possibilities were irresistible. And who was Victor to judge? Hadn’t he engineered the conception of the extraordinary boy he had before him now?
   “Let me look at your lab again,” Victor said, pushing away from the table.
   VJ ran ahead to open the door. Victor returned to the main room where the security men were still playing cards, talking loudly in Spanish.
   Victor slowly walked around the circle, gazing at the instrumentation. Impressive was an understatement. He realized his headache seemed suddenly better. He felt a growing sense of elation. It was hard to believe that his ten-year-old son was responsible for all this.
   “Who knows about this lab?” Victor asked, stopping to appreciate the electron microscope. He ran a hand over its curved surface.
   “Philip and a handful of security people,” said VJ. “And now you.”
   Victor shot VJ a quick glance. VJ smiled back.
   All at once Victor laughed. “And to think this has been going on under our noses all this time!” Victor shook his head in disbelief, continuing around the circle of scientific appliances, tapping the tops of some of them with the tips of his fingers. “And are you sure about this implantation protein?” Victor asked, already considering likely trade names: Conceptol. Fertol.
   “Completely,” VJ said. “And that’s just one of the discoveries that I’ve made. There are many more. I’ve made some advances in understanding the process of cellular differentiation and development I believe will herald a new era of biology.”
   Victor stopped his wandering and turned back to VJ. “Does Marsha know anything about this?” he asked.
   “Nothing!” VJ said with emphasis.
   “She is going to be one happy lady,” Victor said with a smile. “She’s been worrying herself sick that something is wrong with you since you don’t have time for kids your own age.”
   “I’ve been a little too busy for Cub Scouts,” said VJ.
   Victor laughed. “God, I’ll say. She’s going to love this. We’ll have to tell her and bring her here.”
   “I’m not convinced that’s such a good idea,” VJ said.
   “It is, believe me,” Victor said. “It will relieve her enormously and I won’t have to listen to another lecture on your psychological development.”
   “I don’t want people knowing about this lab,” VJ said.
   “It was an unexpected accident that you discovered it. I wasn’t planning on telling you any of this until I’d moved the lab to the new location.”
   “Where is that?” Victor asked.
   “Nearby,” VJ said. “I’ll show it to you on another day.”
   “But we have to tell Marsha,” Victor insisted. “You have no idea how worried she’s been about you. I’ll take care of her. She won’t tell anyone.”
   “It’s a risk,” VJ said. “I don’t think she’ll be as impressed as you by my accomplishments. She’s not as enthusiastic about science as we are.”
   “She’ll be ecstatic that you are such a genius. And that you’ve put all this together. It’s just extraordinary.”
   “Well, maybe . . .” VJ said, trying to decide.
   “Trust me,” Victor said enthusiastically.
   “Perhaps on this one issue I’ll have to bow to your better judgment,” VJ said. “I guess you know her better than I do. All I can say is that I hope you’re right. She could cause a lot of trouble.”
   “I’ll get her right now,” Victor said with obvious excitement.
   “How will you get her over here to the building without people noticing?” VJ said.
   “It’s Saturday,” Victor said. “Hardly anyone is around, especially so late in the day.”
   “Okay,” VJ said with resignation.
   Victor headed for the stairs, practically running. “I’ll be back in thirty minutes. Forty-five, tops,” he said. He charged up a half dozen steps, then came to a stop. As he noticed before, the stairs dead-ended into heavy planks.
   “Is this the way out?” Victor asked.
   “Just give it a shove,” VJ said. “It’s counterweighted.”
   Victor went up the rest of the stairs more slowly until his hand rested on the overhead planks. Tentatively, he pushed upward. To his surprise, a large trapdoor opened with amazing ease. Casting a last glance down at VJ, Victor winked, then climbed up the rest of the stairs. When he let go of the trapdoor, it sank silently into place, cutting off the light from below.
   Victor ran from the building, his pulse up from sheer exhilaration. He hadn’t felt so ecstatic in years.

   Having returned from her two upsetting visits, Marsha made herself a real cup of tea. She’d taken it into her study to try to calm down when she heard Victor’s car start up the drive.
   It wasn’t long before his head popped through the door. He still had his coat on. “Ah, there you are, sweet thing!”
   Sweet thing? Marsha thought disdainfully. He hasn’t called me that for years. “Come in here!” she called to him.
   But Victor was already on his way into the room. He grabbed her hand, trying to pull her from her couch. Marsha resisted and got her hand free. “What are you doing?” she questioned.
   “I’ve got something to show you.” There was a distinct twinkle in his eye.
   “What’s come over you?”
   “Come on!” Victor urged, pulling her to her feet. “I’ve got a surprise for you that you are going to love.”
   “I’ve got a surprise for you that you are not going to love,” Marsha said. “Sit down. I have something important to tell you.”
   “Later,” Victor said. “What I’ve got is more important.”
   “I doubt that,” Marsha said. “I’ve learned some more disturbing things about VJ.”
   “Isn’t that appropriate?” Victor said with a smile. “Because what I’ve discovered is going to make you forget all VJ’s traits you’ve been agonizing over.”
   Victor tried to drag Marsha from the room. “Victor!” she called out sharply. She pulled her arm free again. “You’re acting like a child!”
   “I’m immune to your worst epithet,” Victor said gaily. “Marsha, I’m not kidding—I have some great news for you.”
   Marsha put her hands on her hips and spread her legs for stability. “VJ has been lying to us about other things besides the school situation. I found out that he has never stayed at the Blakemore house. Never!”
   “I’m not surprised,” Victor said, thinking how much time VJ would need to spend in his lab to accomplish what he apparently had.
   “You’re not surprised?” Marsha said with exasperation, throwing her hands into the air. “Richie Blakemore and VJ are not even friends. In fact, they had a fight recently in which VJ broke the Blakemore boy’s nose.”
   “Okay, okay!” Victor said, assuming a calm tone of voice. He gripped Marsha’s upper arms and looked directly into her warm eyes. “Calm down and listen to me. What I have to show you will explain where VJ has been spending most of his time. Now will you just trust me and come?”
   Marsha’s eyes narrowed. At least he sounded sincere. “Where are you taking me?” she demanded suspiciously.
   “Out to the car,” Victor said enthusiastically. “Come on, get your coat.”
   “I hope you know what you’re doing,” Marsha said as she allowed herself to be led from her study. She got her coat and a few minutes later she was holding on to the dash to steady herself. “Do we have to drive this fast?” she asked.
   “I can’t wait for you to see this,” Victor said. He banked sharply. “And to think I was proud of a secret tree house I built when I was twelve!”
   Marsha wondered if he’d taken leave of his senses. He’d been behaving so oddly lately, but she’d never seen him like this.
   Victor thundered over the Merrimack River and eventually pulled into Chimera. The security shift had changed in the guardhouse. Fred wasn’t the one manning the gate.
   In deference to VJ’s concern for secrecy, Victor parked in his usual spot in front of the administration building. “We have a little walk,” he said to Marsha as they alighted from the car.
   It was late afternoon as they approached the river. Long shadows had begun to creep across the alleyways. It was also quite cold. Marsha guessed it was in the thirties. Victor walked slightly ahead of her, glancing back over his shoulder as if he expected someone might be following them. Marsha glanced behind them out of curiosity, but no one was there. She pulled her coat around her more closely, and decided what was chilling her was more than the weather.
   Victor took hold of her hand as her gait began to slow. She’d noticed they had moved from the occupied section of the complex to the part that was unrenovated. On either side of her were the dark hulks of abandoned buildings. They loomed ominously in the gathering dusk.
   “Victor, where are you taking me?” she asked, threatening to stop.
   “We’re almost there,” Victor said, urging her onward.
   When they got to the gaping entranceway of the derelict clock tower building, Marsha stopped.
   “You don’t expect me to go in there?” she asked, incredulous. She leaned back and looked up at the soaring tower. Rapidly moving clouds made her momentarily dizzy. She had to look away.
   “Please,” Victor said. “VJ is here. You’ll be wonderfully surprised. Trust me.”
   Marsha looked from Victor’s excited face to the interior gloom of the building and back. Victor’s eyes were bright with anticipation. “This is crazy,” she said. Grudgingly, she moved forward. The gloom enveloped them.
   Marsha let Victor lead as they stumbled over the rubble-strewn floor. “Just a little further,” Victor said.
   Marsha’s eyes adjusted enough to see vague outlines on the floor. To her left were large window openings through which came the roar of the falls as well as reflected light from the surface of the millpond. Victor stopped in front of an empty corner. He let go of Marsha’s hand and bent down. He knocked on the floor. To Marsha’s surprise, a section of the floor lifted and incandescent light flooded up.
   “Mother,” VJ said. “Come in quickly.”
   Marsha gingerly climbed down the stairs. Victor followed and VJ let the trapdoor glide back into place.
   Marsha looked around the room. To her, it looked like a scene out of a science fiction movie. The combination of the rusted gears, the huge paddle wheel, and the granite, along with the profusion of high-tech instrumentation, was disorienting. She nodded to Philip, who nodded back at her. She nodded to the Chimera security guards but they didn’t return the gesture. She noticed the man with the droopy eyelid.
   “Isn’t it the most amazing thing you’ve ever seen?” Victor said as he came up alongside Marsha. She looked at him. He was beside himself with excitement.
   “What is it?” Marsha questioned.
   “It’s VJ’s lab,” Victor said as he launched into a brief explanation of the setup, including how VJ had been able to build it without anyone having had the slightest suspicion. He even told Marsha about VJ’s discovery of the implantation protein, and what that would mean to the infertility field.
   “So now you have some idea why VJ hasn’t been as social as you’d like,” concluded Victor. “He’s been here, working his butt off!” Victor chuckled as he let his own eyes roam around the room.
   Marsha glanced at VJ, who was eyeing her cautiously, waiting for her reaction, no doubt. There was an enormous piece of equipment in front of her. She had no idea what it was. “Where did all this equipment come from?” she asked.
   “That’s the best part,” Victor said. “It all belongs to Chimera.”
   “How did it get here?” Marsha asked.
   “I guess . . .” Victor began, but then stopped. He looked at VJ. “How did you get this stuff here?”
   “A number of people helped,” VJ said vaguely. “Philip did most of the actual moving. Some of the things had to be disassembled, then put together again. We used the old tunnel system.”
   “Was Gephardt one of the people that helped?” Victor asked, suddenly suspicious.
   “He helped,” VJ admitted.
   “Why was someone like Gephardt willing to help you get equipment?” Marsha asked.
   “He decided it was the prudent thing to do,” VJ said cryptically. “I’d spent some time with the Chimera computer, and I’d discovered a number of people who’d been embezzling the company. Once I had that information, I merely asked these people for help from their respective departments. Of course, no one knew that the others were involved, or what they were doing. So it all stayed nice and quiet. But the point is, all this equipment belongs to Chimera. Nothing has been stolen. It’s all right here.”
   “I’d call it blackmail,” Marsha said.
   “I never once threatened anybody,” VJ said. “I merely let them know what I knew, then asked for a favor.”
   “I’d say VJ was quite resourceful,” Victor said. “But I’d like to have this list of embezzlers.”
   “Sorry,” VJ said. “But I have an understanding with these people. Besides, the worst offender, Dr. Gephardt, was already exposed by the IRS. The ironic thing was that he thought that I’d been behind his exposure.” VJ laughed.
   Victor’s face lit up with sudden comprehension. “I get it,” he said. “Gephardt was directing the messages at you when he tossed the brick and killed poor Kissa.”
   VJ nodded. “The fool,” he said.
   “I want to get out of here!” Marsha said suddenly, surprising both Victor and VJ.
   “But there’s more to see,” Victor said.
   “I’m sure there is,” Marsha said. “But for the moment I’ve seen enough. I want to leave.” She looked from father to son, then glanced around the room. She felt distinctly uncomfortable. The place scared her.
   “There are living quarters . . .” Victor said, pointing toward the west end of the room.
   Marsha ignored his gesture. She walked back to the stairs and started up.
   “I told you we shouldn’t have told her,” VJ whispered.
   Victor put a hand on his shoulder and whispered back, “Don’t worry, I’ll take care of her.” Then to Marsha he called, “Just a second, I’ll come along.”
   Marsha went directly up to the trapdoor and pushed. Once out of the basement, she stumbled blindly across the wide expanse of rubble-filled floor space. When she reached the door and the fresh air, she felt a flood of relief.
   “Marsha, for goodness sake,” said Victor, catching up with her and turning her around. “Where are you going?”
   “Home!” She walked on with determination. But Victor caught up to her again.
   “Why are you acting this way?” Victor asked.
   Marsha didn’t answer. Instead she increased her pace. They were practically running. When they got to Victor’s car, she opened her door and got in.
   Victor got in on his side. “You won’t talk to me?” he questioned with some irritation.
   Setting her jaw, Marsha stared ahead. They drove home in strained silence.
   Once they were home, Marsha poured herself a glass of white wine.
   “Marsha,” Victor began, breaking the veil of silence, “why are you acting like this? I thought you’d be as thrilled as I am, especially after all your worry about whether VJ’s intelligence would drop again. Obviously the boy’s just fine. He’s as bright as ever.”
   “That’s just the point,” Marsha said sharply. “VJ’s intelligence is fine, and it terrifies me. By the looks of that lab, he must still be in the genius range, wouldn’t you say?”
   “Clearly,” said Victor. “Isn’t that wonderful?”
   “No,” Marsha snapped. She put her wineglass on the table. “If he is still a genius, then the whole episode of his intelligence drop had to be a charade. He’s been pretending all this time. He’s been smart enough to outwit my psychological tests, except for that validity scale. Victor, his whole life with us is a sham. Just one big lie.”
   “Maybe there’s another explanation,” Victor said. “Maybe his intelligence dropped, then rebounded.”
   “I just did an IQ test this week,” Marsha said. “He’s tested around 130 since he was three and a half.”
   “Okay,” Victor said with some irritation of his own. “The point is that VJ is okay and we don’t have to worry about him. In fact, he is more than okay. He’s put that lab together all by himself. His IQ has to be much higher than 130. And that means my NGF project is an unqualified success.”
   Marsha shook her head. She couldn’t believe he could be so myopic. “What exactly do you think you have created with VJ and your mutations and gene manipulations?” she asked.
   “I’ve created an essentially normal child with superior intelligence,” Victor said without hesitation.
   “What else?”
   “What do you mean, what else?”
   “What about this person’s personality?” Marsha asked.
   “This person?” Victor questioned. “You are talking about VJ, our son.”
   “What about his personality?” Marsha repeated.
   “Oh, damn the personality,” Victor snapped. “The kid is a prodigy. He’s already accomplished research breakthroughs. So what if he has a few hangups? We all do.”
   “You’ve created a monster,” Marsha said softly, her voice breaking. She bit her lip. Why couldn’t she control her tears? “You’ve created a monster and I’ll never forgive you for it.”
   “Give me a break,” Victor said, exasperated.
   “VJ is an oddity,” Marsha snapped. “His intelligence has set him apart, made him lonely. He apparently realized it when he was three. His intelligence is so far above everyone else’s, he doesn’t respond to the same social restraints. His intelligence has put him beyond everyone, everything.”
   “Are you finished?” Victor demanded.
   “No, I’m not!” Marsha shouted, suddenly angry though tears streamed down her face. “What about the deaths of those children that had the same gene as VJ? Why did they die

   “Why are you bringing that up again?”
   “What about the deaths of David and Janice?” Marsha asked, lowering her voice, ignoring Victor’s question. “I didn’t have a chance to tell you before, but I visited the Fays today. They told me that Janice had been convinced that VJ had something to do with David’s death. She told them he was evil.”
   “We heard that nonsense before her death,” Victor said. “She became a religious psychotic. You said so yourself.”
   “Visiting her parents made me rethink what happened back then,” Marsha said. “Janice had been convinced she’d been drugged and poisoned.”
   “Marsha,” Victor said sharply. He grabbed her by her shoulders. “Get ahold of yourself. You’re talking nonsense. David died of liver cancer, remember? Janice went a little crazy before she died. Remember that? She had some paranoia in addition to her other troubles. She probably had a brain metastasis, the poor woman. Besides, people don’t get liver cancer because they’re poisoned.” But even as he said the words, doubts of his own sprang up. He recalled the troublesome bit of DNA that he’d found in both David’s and Janice’s tumor cells. “And about those children’s deaths,” Victor said as he sat down across from her. “I’m sure they had something to do with the internal politics of Chimera. Somebody has found out about the NGF experiment and wants to discredit me. That’s why I want someone with VJ.”
   “When did you decide this?” Marsha asked, lowering her glass.
   Victor shrugged. “I don’t remember exactly,” he said. “Sometime this week.”
   “That means even you think the deaths were really murders; that somebody deliberately killed those children,” Marsha said with renewed alarm.
   Victor had forgotten that he’d purposefully kept the information about the cephaloclor from her. He swallowed uncomfortably.
   “Victor!” Marsha said with resentment. “What haven’t you told me?”
   Stalling, Victor took a sip from his drink. He tried to think of some smoke screen to cover the truth, but couldn’t think of a thing. The day’s revelations had made him careless. With a sigh he explained about the cephaloclor in the children’s blood.
   “My God!” Marsha whispered. “Are you sure it was someone at Chimera who gave the children the cephaloclor?”
   “Absolutely,” Victor said. “The only place the children’s lives intersected was at the Chimera day-care center. That had to be where they were given the cephaloclor.”
   “But who would do such a terrible thing?” Marsha asked. She wanted to be reassured that VJ could not be involved.
   “It had to be either Hurst or Ronald. If I had to pick one, I’d pick Hurst. But until I get harder evidence, all I can do is keep the security man with VJ to be sure no one tries to give him any cephaloclor.”
   Just then the back door burst open and VJ, Philip, and Pedro Gonzales came into the family room. Marsha stayed in her seat, but Victor jumped up. “Hello, everybody,” Victor said, trying to sound cheerful. He started to introduce Pedro to Marsha but she interrupted him and said that they’d already met that morning.
   “That’s good,” Victor said, rubbing his hands together. He obviously didn’t know what to do.
   Marsha looked at VJ. VJ stared back at her with his penetrating blue eyes. She had to avert her gaze. It was a terrifying feeling for her to harbor the thoughts she had about him, especially since she’d come to realize that she was afraid of him.
   “Why don’t you guys hit the pool?” Victor said to VJ and Philip.
   “Sounds good to me,” VJ said. He and Philip went up the back stairs.
   “You’ll be back in the morning?” Victor asked Pedro.
   “Yes, sir,” he said. “Six A.M., I’ll be out in the courtyard in my car.”
   Victor saw the man off, then came back into the kitchen.
   “I’ll go have a talk with VJ,” Victor announced. “I’ll ask him directly about this intelligence question. Maybe whatever he says will make you feel better.”
   “I think I already know what he’ll say,” said Marsha, “but suit yourself.”
   Victor went up the stairs quickly and turned into VJ’s room. VJ looked expectantly at his father as he entered. Victor realized how awed he felt by his own creation. The boy was beautiful and had a mind that must be boundless. Victor didn’t know whether to be jealous or proud.
   “Mother isn’t as excited about the lab as you are,” VJ said. “I can tell.”
   “It was a little overwhelming for her,” Victor explained.
   “I wish I hadn’t agreed to let her see it,” VJ said.
   “Don’t worry,” Victor assured him. “I’ll take care of her. But there is something that has been bothering her for years. Did you fake your loss of intelligence back when you were three and a half?”
   “Of course,” VJ said, slipping on his robe over his hairless body. “I had to. If I hadn’t, I’d never have been able to work as I have. I needed anonymity which I couldn’t have had as some superintelligent freak. I wanted to be treated normally, and for that to happen, I had to appear normal. Or close to it.”
   “You didn’t think you could have talked to me about it?” Victor asked.
   “Are you kidding?” VJ said. “You and Mom constantly had me on show. There was no way you would have been willing to let me quit.”
   “You’re probably right,” Victor admitted. “For a while there your abilities were the focus of our lives.”
   “Are you going to swim with us?” VJ asked with a smile. “I’ll let you win.”
   Victor laughed in spite of himself. “Thanks, but I’d better go back and talk with Marsha. Get her to calm down. You have fun.” Victor went to the door, but turned back toward the room. “Tomorrow I’d like to hear the details about the implantation project.”
   “I’ll be excited to show you,” VJ said.
   Victor nodded, smiled, then went back downstairs. As he neared the kitchen he could smell garlic, onions, and peppers sauteeing for spaghetti sauce. A good sign, Marsha working on dinner.
   Marsha had thrown herself into preparing the meal as a form of instant therapy. Her mind was such a jumble from the day’s numerous revelations. Busywork was a way of avoiding thinking about the implications. When Victor returned from talking to VJ, she studiously ignored him, instead focusing her attention on the tomato paste she was in the process of opening.
   Victor didn’t say anything for a time. Instead, he laid the table and opened a bottle of Chianti. When he ran out of things to do, he sat on one of the bar stools at the kitchen counter and said, “You were right about VJ feigning his loss of intelligence.”
   “I’m not surprised,” Marsha said. She got out the lettuce, onions, and cucumbers for the salad.
   “But he had a damn good reason.” He gave her VJ’s to-the-point explanation.
   “I guess that’s supposed to make me feel more comfortable,” Marsha said when Victor was done.
   Victor said nothing.
   Marsha persisted. “Tell me, when you were upstairs talking with VJ, did you ask him about the deaths of those children, and about David’s and Janice’s?”
   “Of course not!” Victor said, horrified at the suggestion. “Why should I do that?”
   “Why shouldn’t you?”
   “Because it’s preposterous.”
   “I think you haven’t asked VJ anything about them because you’re afraid to,” Marsha said.
   “Oh, come on,” Victor snapped. “You’re talking nonsense again.”
   “I’m afraid to ask him,” Marsha said flatly. But she could feel the tug in her throat.
   “You’re letting your imagination run wild. Now I know it’s been an upsetting day for you. I’m sorry. I really thought you’d be thrilled. But someday I think you’re going to look back on this day and laugh at yourself. If this implantation work is anything like he says it is, the sky’s the limit for VJ’s career.”
   “I hope so,” Marsha said without conviction.
   “But you have to promise that you won’t tell anyone about VJ’s lab,” Victor said.
   “Who would I tell?”
   “Let me handle VJ for the time being,” Victor said. “I’m sure we are going to be very proud of him.”
   Marsha shuddered involuntarily as a chill passed down her spine. “Is it cold in here?” she asked.
   Victor checked the thermostat. “Nope. If anything, it’s too warm.”

12. Sunday Morning

   At four-thirty in the morning Marsha woke up with a start. She had no idea what had awakened her, and for a few minutes she breathed shallowly, and listened to the nighttime noises of the house. She heard nothing out of the ordinary. She rolled over and tried to go back to sleep but it was impossible. In her mind’s eye, she kept seeing VJ’s eerie lab with its juxtaposition of the old and the very new. Then she’d see the strange appearance of the man with the lidded eye.
   Swinging her feet from beneath the covers, Marsha sat on the edge of the bed. So as not to bother Victor, she stood up, wiggled into her slippers, and pulled on her robe. As quietly as possible she eased open the door to the bedroom and equally as quietly, pulled it shut.
   She stood in the hall for a moment, thinking about where she should go. As if pulled by some unseen force, she found herself walking the length of the hall, heading toward VJ’s room. When she got there, she noticed the door was slightly ajar.
   Marsha quietly pushed the door open wider. A gentle light was coming through the window from the post lamps lining the driveway. To her relief, VJ was fast asleep. He was lying on his side facing her. Sleeping, he looked like an angel of a boy. Could her darling baby really have had a hand in the dark events at Chimera? She couldn’t bring herself to think of Janice and David, her beloved first son. But with horror, a vision of David in his last days, his skin yellowed from the disease, flashed upon her.
   Marsha stifled a cry. All of a sudden her mind conjured up a horrid image of her taking a pillow and pushing it down on VJ’s peaceful face, smothering him. Horrified, she recoiled from the thought and shook herself. Then she fled silently down the hall, running from herself.
   Marsha stopped at the guest room door, which had temporarily become Philip’s room. Pushing the door open, she could make out Philip’s massive head silhouetted against the stark white of the bed linens. After a moment’s thought, Marsha slipped into the room and stood next to the bed. The man was snoring deeply, his breath softly whistling on exhale. Bending down, Marsha gave his shoulder a gentle nudge. “Philip,” she called softly. “Philip!”
   Philip’s closely set eyes blinked open. Abruptly, he sat up. A look of momentary fear flashed across his face before he recognized Marsha. Then he smiled, revealing his square, widely spaced teeth.
   “Sorry to awaken you,” she whispered. “But I need to talk to you for a moment.”
   “Okay,” Philip said groggily. He leaned back on an elbow.
   Marsha pulled a chair over to the bed, turned on the light on the nightstand, and sat down. “I wanted to thank you for being such a good friend to VJ,” she said.
   Philip’s face broke out in a wide smile as he squinted in the light. He nodded.
   “You must have been a great help in setting up the lab,” Marsha said.
   Philip nodded again.
   “Who else helped with the lab?”
   Philip’s smile waned. He looked around the room nervously. “I’m not supposed to say.”
   “I’m VJ’s mother,” Marsha reminded him. “It’s all right to tell me.”
   Philip shifted his weight uneasily.
   Marsha waited but Philip didn’t say anything.
   “Did Mr. Gephardt help?” Marsha asked.
   Philip nodded.
   “But then Mr. Gephardt got into trouble. Did he get angry at VJ?”
   “Oh, yeah!” Philip said. “He got angry and then VJ got angry. But VJ talked with Mr. Martinez.”
   “What’s Mr. Martinez’s first name?”
   “Orlando,” Philip said.
   “Does Mr. Martinez work at Chimera, too?”
   Philip’s agitation began to return. “No,” he said. “He works in Mattapan.”
   “The town of Mattapan?” Marsha asked. “South of Boston?”
   Philip nodded.
   Marsha started to ask another question but she suddenly felt a presence that sent a shiver up her spine. She turned to the door. VJ was standing in the doorway with his hands on the jambs, his chin jutting forward.
   “I think Philip needs his sleep,” he said.
   Marsha stood up abruptly. She started to say something but the words wouldn’t come out. Instead she hurriedly brushed by VJ and ran down to her room.
   For the next half hour, Marsha lay there, terrified that VJ would come into their bedroom. She jumped every time the wind blew the oak tree branches against the side of the house.
   When he didn’t appear, Marsha finally relaxed. She turned over and tried to sleep, but her mind would not stop. Her thoughts drifted to the mysterious Orlando Martinez. Then she began to think about Janice Fay. She thought about David, feeling the familiar sadness. She thought about Mr. Remington and the Pendleton Academy. Then she recalled the teacher who tried to befriend VJ and the fact that he died. She wondered what he’d died of.
   The next thing she knew, Victor was waking her to tell her he was leaving with VJ.
   “What time is it?” Marsha asked, looking at the clock herself. To her surprise, it was nine-thirty.
   “You were sleeping so soundly I didn’t have the heart to wake you,” Victor said. “VJ and I are off to his lab. He’s going to show me the details of the implantation work he’s done. Why don’t you come along? I have a feeling this is really going to be something.”
   Marsha shook her head. “I’ll stay here,” she said. “You can tell me about it.”
   “You sure?” Victor questioned. “If this is as good as I think it will be, maybe you’ll feel better about the whole situation.”
   “I’m sure,” Marsha said, but her tone was doubtful.
   Victor planted a kiss on her forehead. “Try to relax, okay? Everything is going to work out for the best. I’m sure of it.”
   Victor went down the back stairs, literally shivering with excitement. If the implantation was real, he could surprise the other board members with the news at the Wednesday board meeting.
   “Mom’s not coming?” VJ asked. He was near the back door with his coat already on. Philip was standing next to him.
   “No, but she’s calmer this morning,” Victor said. “I can tell.”
   “She was pumping Philip for information in the middle of the night,” VJ said. “That’s the kind of behavior that disturbs me.”

   After the car pulled out of the drive, Marsha went to the upstairs study and got out the Boston phone book. She sat on the couch and looked up Martinez. Unfortunately, there were hordes of Martinezes, even Orlando Martinezes. But she found one Orlando Martinez in Mattapan. Taking the phone in her lap, she called the number. The phone was answered, and Marsha was about to start talking when she realized she was connected to an answering machine.
   The message on the machine told her that the office of Martinez Enterprises was open Monday through Friday. She didn’t leave a message. From the phone book she copied down the address.
   Marsha took a shower, dressed, made herself some coffee and a poached egg. Then she donned her down coat and went out to her car. Fifteen minutes later, she was on the grounds of Pendleton Academy.
   It was a blustery but sunny day with the wind roughing the surface of the puddles left by the previous day’s rain. Many of the students were in evidence, most of them going to and from the obligatory attendance at chapel. Marsha pulled up as close as she could to the tiny gothic structure and waited. She was looking for Mr. Remington and was hoping to catch him out and about.
   Soon the bells in the bell tower tolled the eleven o’clock hour. The doors to the chapel opened and rosy-cheeked kids spilled out into the fresh air and sunshine. Among them were a number of adult staff members, including Mr. Remington. His heavily bearded profile stood out among the crowds.
   Marsha got out of the car and waited. Mr. Remington’s path would take him right by her. He was walking with a deliberate step. When he got about ten feet away, Marsha called his name. He stopped and looked at her.
   “Dr. Frank!” he said with some surprise.
   “Good morning,” Marsha said. “I hope I’m not intruding.”
   “Not at all,” Remington said. “Something on your mind?”
   “There is,” Marsha said. “I wanted to ask you a question which might sound a little strange. I hope you will indulge me. You told me that the instructor who tried so hard to befriend VJ died. What did he die of?”
   “The poor man died of cancer,” Mr. Remington said.
   “I was afraid of that,” Marsha said.
   “Excuse me?”
   But Marsha didn’t explain herself. “Do you know what kind of cancer?” she asked.
   “I’m afraid I don’t, but I believe I mentioned that his wife is still on staff here. Her name is Stephanie. Stephanie Cavendish.”
   “Do you think I might speak with her today?” Marsha asked.
   “I don’t see why not,” Mr. Remington said. “She lives in the cottage on the grounds of my headmaster’s house. We both share the same lawn. I was on my way home and the cottage is just a stone’s throw away. I’d be happy to introduce you to her.”
   Marsha fell in step with Mr. Remington and they walked the length of the quad. While they were walking, Marsha asked, “Was any staff member close to my late son, David?”
   “Most of the instructors were fond of David,” Mr. Remington said. “He was a popular boy. If I had to pick one, I’d say Joe Arnold. He’s a very popular history teacher who I believe was close to your David.”
   The cottage Mr. Remington had spoken of looked like some cottage out of the Cotswold section of England. With whitewashed walls and a roof that was made to look thatched, it appeared as if it belonged in a fairy tale. Mr. Remington rang the bell himself. He introduced Marsha to Mrs. Cavendish, a slim, attractive woman Marsha guessed was about her own age. Marsha learned that she was the head of the school’s physical education department.
   Mr. Remington excused himself after Mrs. Cavendish invited Marsha inside.
   Mrs. Cavendish led Marsha into her kitchen and offered her a cup of tea. “Please, call me Stephanie,” she said as they sat down. “So you’re VJ’s mother! My husband was a big fan of your boy. He was convinced VJ was extraordinarily bright. He really raved about him.”
   “That’s what Mr. Remington said,” Marsha said.
   “He loved to relate the story of VJ solving an algebra problem to everyone who’d listen.”
   Marsha nodded and said that Mr. Remington had told the story to her.
   “But Raymond thought your son was troubled,” Stephanie said. “That’s why he tried so hard to get VJ to be less withdrawn. Ray really did try. He thought that VJ was alone too much and was afraid VJ might be suicidal. He worried about the boy—oh, never academically. But socially, I think.”
   Marsha nodded.
   “How is he these days?” Stephanie asked. “I don’t have much occasion to see him.”
   “I’m afraid he still doesn’t have many friends. He’s not very outgoing.”
   “I’m sorry to hear that,” said Stephanie.
   Marsha gathered her courage. “I hope you don’t think me too forward, but I’d like to ask a personal question. Mr. Remington told me your late husband died of cancer. Would you mind if I asked what kind of cancer?”
   “I don’t mind,” said Stephanie. There was a sudden tightening in her throat. “It was a while before I could talk about it,” she allowed. “Ray died of a form of liver cancer. It was very rare. He was treated at Mass. General in Boston. The doctors there had only seen a couple of similar cases.”
   Although Marsha had expected as much, she still felt as though she’d been hit. This was exactly what she was afraid of hearing.
   As tactfully as she could, Marsha ended the conversation, but not before enlisting Mrs. Cavendish’s aid in getting an invitation over to Joe Arnold’s house.
   He wasn’t the sort of stuffy history professor-type Marsha had expected. His warm brown eyes lit up when he opened the door to greet her. Like Stephanie Cavendish, he seemed about her own age. Between his swarthy good looks, empathic eyes, and somewhat disheveled clothing, Marsha could see he had a beguiling demeanor. He was no doubt an excellent teacher; he had the kind of enthusiasm students would find infectious. No wonder David had gravitated toward this man.
   “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Mrs. Frank. Come in, please come in.” He held the door for her and led her into the book-lined study. She looked around the room admiringly. “David used to spend lots of afternoons right here.”
   Marsha felt unbidden tears threaten to appear. It saddened her a little to think how much of David’s life she didn’t know. She quickly composed herself.
   After thanking Joe for seeing her on such short notice, Marsha got to the point of why she was interested in seeing him. She asked Joe if David had ever discussed his brother VJ.
   “On a few occasions,” Joe said. “David admitted to me that he’d had trouble with VJ from the first day that VJ had arrived home from the hospital. That’s normal enough, but to tell you the truth, I got the feeling it went beyond the usual sibling rivalry. I tried to get him to talk about it, but David would never elaborate. We had a strong relationship, I think, but on this one subject he wouldn’t open up.”
   “He never got more specific about his feelings or what the trouble was?”
   “Well, David once told me that he was afraid of VJ.”
   “Did he say why?”
   “I was under the impression that VJ threatened him,” Joe said. “That was as much as he’d say. I know brothers’ relationships can be tricky, especially at that age. But quite frankly, I had a funny feeling about David’s trouble with VJ. David seemed genuinely spooked—almost too afraid to talk about it. In the end, I insisted he see the school psychologist.”
   “Did he?” Marsha questioned. She’d never heard about that, and it added to her guilt.
   “You bet he did,” Joe told her. “I wasn’t about to let this thing drop. David was very special . . .” For a moment, Joe choked up. “Whew, sorry,” he apologized after a pause. But Marsha was touched by such an obvious display of feeling. She nodded, moved herself.
   “Is the psychologist still on staff?” Marsha asked.
   “Madeline Zinnzer?” Joe asked. “Absolutely. She’s an institution around here. She’s been here longer than anybody else.”
   Marsha made use of Joe Arnold’s hospitality to get herself invited over to Madeline Zinnzer’s home. Marsha couldn’t thank him enough.
   “Anytime,” said Joe, giving her hand an extra squeeze. “Really, anytime.”

   Madeline Zinnzer looked like an institution. She was a large woman, well over two hundred pounds. Her gray hair had been permed into tight curls. She took Marsha into a comfortable, spacious living room with a picture window looking out over the Pendleton Academy quad.
   “One of the benefits of being on the staff so long,” Madeline said, following Marsha’s line of sight. “I finally got to move into the best of the faculty housing.”
   “I hope you don’t mind my stopping by on a Sunday,” Marsha began.
   “Not at all,” Madeline insisted.
   “I have some questions about my children that maybe you can help me with.”
   “That’s what Joe Arnold mentioned,” Madeline said. “I’m afraid I don’t have the memory he does of your boy, David. But I do have a file which I went over after Joe called. What’s on your mind?”
   “David told Joe that his younger brother, VJ, had threatened him, but he wouldn’t tell Joe much more than that. Were you able to learn anything more?”
   Madeline made a tent with her fingers and leaned back in her chair. Then she cleared her throat. “I saw David on a number of occasions,” she began. “After talking with him at length, it was my opinion that David was using the defense mechanism of projection. It was my feeling that David projected his own feelings of competition and hostility onto VJ.”
   “Then the threat wasn’t specific?” Marsha asked.
   “I didn’t say that,” Madeline said. “Apparently there had been a specific threat.”
   “What was it about?”
   “Boy stuff,” Madeline said. “Something about a hiding place that VJ had that David found out about. Something innocuous like that.”
   “Could it have been a lab rather than a hiding place?” Marsha asked.
   “Could have been,” Madeline said. “David could have said lab, but I wrote hiding place in the file.”
   “Did you ever talk with VJ?” Marsha asked.
   “Once,” Madeline said. “I thought it would be helpful to get a feeling for the reality about the relationship. VJ was extremely straightforward. He told me that his brother David had been jealous of him from the day VJ had arrived home from the hospital.” Then Madeline laughed. “VJ told me that he could remember arriving home after he was born. That tickled me at the time.”
   “Did David ever say what the threat was?” Marsha asked.
   “Oh, yes,” Madeline said. “David told me that VJ had threatened to kill him.”
   From the Pendleton Academy Marsha drove to Boston. Much as she resisted putting the pieces together, she felt utterly compelled to assemble them. She kept telling herself that everything she was learning was either circumstantial, coincidental, or innocuous. She had already lost one child. But even so, she knew she couldn’t rest until she found the truth.
   Marsha had taken her psychiatric residency at the Massachusetts General Hospital. Visiting there was like going home. But she didn’t go to the psych unit. Instead, she went directly to Pathology and found a senior resident, Dr. Preston Gordon.
   “Sure I can do that,” Preston said. “Since you don’t know the birthday, it will take a little searching, but nothing else is happening right now.”
   Marsha followed Preston into the center of the pathology department where they sat at one of the hospital computers. There were several Raymond Cavendishes listed in the system, but by knowing the approximate year of death, they were able to find the Raymond Cavendish of Boxford, Massachusetts.
   “All right,” Preston said. “Here comes the record.” The screen filled with the man’s hospital record. Preston scrolled through. “Here’s the biopsy,” he said. “And here’s the diagnosis: liver cancer of Kupffer cell of reticuloendothelial origin.” Preston whistled. “Now that’s a zebra. I’ve never even heard of that one.”
   “Can you tell me if there have been any similar cases treated at the hospital?” Marsha asked.
   Preston returned to the keyboard and began a search. It took him only a few minutes to get the answer. A name flashed on the screen. “There has only been one other case at this hospital,” he said. “The name was Janice Fay.”

   Victor tuned his car radio to a station that played oldies but goodies and sang along happily to a group of songs from the late fifties, a time when he’d been in high school. He was in a great mood on his drive home, having spent the day totally engrossed and spellbound by VJ’s prodigious output from his hidden basement laboratory. It had turned out to be exactly as VJ had said it would be: beyond his wildest dreams.
   As Victor turned into the driveway, the songs had changed to the late sixties, and he belted out “Sweet Caroline” along with Neil Diamond. He drove the car around the house and waited for the garage door to open. After he pulled the car into the garage, he sang until the song was over before turning off the ignition, getting out and skirting Marsha’s car, heading into the house.
   “Marsha!” Victor yelled as soon as he got inside. He knew she was home because her car was there, but the lights weren’t on.
   “Marsha!” he yelled again, but her name caught in his throat. She was sitting no more than ten feet from him in the relative darkness of the family room. “There you are,” he said.
   “Where’s VJ?” she asked. She sounded tired.
   “He insisted on going off on his bicycle,” Victor said. “But have no fear. Pedro’s with him.”
   “I’m not worried about VJ at this point,” Marsha said. “Maybe we should worry about the security man.”
   Victor turned on a light. Marsha shielded her eyes. “Please,” she said. “Keep it off for now.”
   Victor obliged. He’d hoped she’d be in a better mood by the time he got home, but it wasn’t looking good. Undaunted, Victor sat down and launched into lavish praise of VJ’s work and his astounding accomplishments. He told Marsha that the implantation protein really worked. The evidence was incontrovertible. Then he told her the pièce de résistance: solving the implantation problem unlocked the door to the mystery of the entire differentiation process.
   “If VJ wasn’t so intent on secrecy,” Victor said, “he could be in contention for a Nobel Prize. I’m convinced of it. As it is, he wants me to take all the credit and Chimera to get all the economic benefit. What do you think? Does that sound like a personality disorder to you? To me it sounds pretty generous.”
   Without any response from Marsha, Victor ran out of things to say. After he was quiet for a moment, she said, “I hate to ruin your day, but I’m afraid I have learned more disturbing things about VJ.”
   Victor rolled his eyes as he ran his fingers through his hair. This was not the response he was hoping for.
   “The one teacher at the Pendleton Academy who made a big effort to get close to VJ died a few years ago.”
   “I’m sorry to hear that.”
   “He died of cancer.”
   “Okay, he died of cancer,” Victor said. He could feel his pulse quicken.
   “Liver cancer.”
   “Oh,” Victor said. He did not like the drift of this conversation.
   “It was the same rare type that both David and Janice died of,” Marsha said.
   A heavy silence settled over the family room. The refrigerator compressor started. Victor did not want to hear these things. He wanted to talk about the implantation technology and what it would do for all those infertile couples when the zygotes refused to implant.
   “For an extremely rare cancer, a lot of people seem to be contracting it. People who cross VJ. I had a talk with Mr. Cavendish’s wife. His widow. She’s a very kind woman. She teaches at Pendleton too. And I spoke to a Mr. Arnold. It turns out he was close to David. Do you know that VJ threatened David?”
   “For God’s sakes, Marsha! Kids always threaten each other. I did it myself when my older brother wrecked a snow house I’d built.”
   “VJ threatened to kill David, Victor. And not in the heat of an argument.” Marsha was near tears. “Wake up, Victor!”
   “I don’t want to talk about it anymore,” Victor said angrily, “at least not now.” He was still high from the day’s tour of VJ’s lab. Was there a darker side to his son’s genius? At times in the past, he’d had his suspicions, but they were all too easy to dismiss. VJ seemed such a perfect child. But now Marsha was expressing the same kind of doubts and backing them up so that they made a kind of evil sense. Could the little boy who gave him a tour of the lab, the genius behind the new implantation process, also be behind unspeakable acts? The murder of those children, of Janice Fay, of his own son David? Victor couldn’t consider the horror of it all. He banished such thoughts. It was impossible. Someone at the lab killed the kids. The other deaths had to have been coincidental. Marsha was really pushing this too far. But then, she’d been on the hysterical side ever since the Hobbs and Murray kids had died. But if her fears were in any way justified, what would he do? How could he blithely support VJ in his many scientific endeavors? And if it was true, if VJ was half prodigy, half monster, what did it say of him, his creator?
   Marsha might have insisted more, but just then VJ arrived home. He came in just as he had a week ago Sunday night, with his saddlebags over his shoulder. It was as though he’d known what they’d been talking about. VJ glared at Marsha, his blue eyes more chilling than ever. Marsha shuddered. She could not return his stare. Her fear of him was escalating.

   Victor paced his study, absently chewing on the end of a pen. The door was closed and the house was quiet. As far as he knew, everybody was long since tucked into bed. It had been a strained evening with Marsha closeting herself in the bedroom after Victor had refused to discuss VJ anymore.
   Victor had planned to spend the night working on his presentation of the new implantation method for Wednesday’s board meeting. But he just couldn’t concentrate. Marsha’s words nagged him. Try as he would, he couldn’t put them out of his mind. So what if VJ threatened David? Boys would be boys.
   But the idea of yet another case of the rare liver cancer ate at him, especially in light of the fact that both David’s and Janice’s tumors had that extra bit of DNA in them. That had yet to be explained. Victor had purposefully kept the discovery from Marsha. It was bad enough he had to think of it. If he couldn’t spare her the pain of what might be the awful truth of the matter, at least he’d spare her each small revelation that pointed to it.
   And then there was Marsha’s question of what else VJ was doing behind his lab’s closed doors. The boy was so resourceful, and he had all the equipment to do almost anything in experimental biology. Aside from the implantation method, just what was he up to? Even during the tour, extensive though it was, Victor couldn’t help but feel VJ wasn’t letting him in on everything.
   “Maybe I ought to take a look,” Victor said aloud as he tossed the pen onto his desk. It was quarter to two in the morning, but who cared!
   Victor scribbled a short note in case Marsha or VJ came down to look for him. Then he got his coat and a flashlight, backed his car out of the garage, and lowered the door with his remote. When he got to the end of the driveway, he stopped and looked back at the house. No lights came on; no one had gotten up.
   At Chimera, the security guard working the gate came out of the office and shined a light into Victor’s face. “Excuse me, Dr. Frank,” he said as he ran back inside to lift the gate.
   Victor commended him for his diligence, then drove down to the building that housed his lab. He parked his car directly in front of it. When he was sure that he was not being observed, he jogged toward the river. He was tempted to use his flashlight, but he was afraid to do so. He didn’t want others to know of the existence of VJ’s lab.
   As he approached the river, the roar of the falls seemed even more deafening at night. Gusts of wind whipped about the alleyways, kicking up dust and debris, forcing Victor to lower his head. At last he reached the entrance to the clock tower building.
   Victor hesitated at the entranceway. He was not the type to be spooked, but the place was so desolate and dark that he felt a little bit afraid. Again, he would have liked to use the flashlight, but again it would have been a giveaway if anybody happened to see the glow.
   Victor felt his way in the dark, tapping his foot ahead gingerly before taking a step. He was deep into the first floor level, close to the trapdoor, when he felt the flutter of wings right at his face. He cried out in surprise, then realized he’d only disturbed a bevy of pigeons that had made the deserted clock tower building their roost.
   Victor took a deep breath and moved on. With relief, he reached the trapdoor, only to realize he didn’t know how to raise it. He tried in various locations to get a grip on the floorboards with his fingernails, but he couldn’t get it to lift.
   In frustration, Victor turned on the flashlight to survey the area. He had no choice. On the floor among the other trash was a short metal rod. He picked it up and returned to the trapdoor. Without much trouble, he was able to pry it open about an inch. As soon as he did, it rose effortlessly.
   Victor quickly eased himself down the stairs far enough to allow the trapdoor to close above him. It was dark in the lab save for the beam of his flashlight. Victor searched for the panel that would turn on the lights. He found it under the stairs and flipped the switches. As the room filled with fluorescent light, Victor breathed a sigh of relief.
   He decided to examine a lab area VJ hadn’t shown him, a room he’d been fairly dismissive of even when Victor questioned him.
   But he never made it to the door. He was about fifteen feet away when the door to the living quarters burst open and an attack dog came snarling at him. Victor leaped back, throwing his arms up to guard his face. He closed his eyes and braced for the contact.
   But there wasn’t any. Victor opened his eyes cautiously. The vicious dog had been brought up short by a chain held by a Chimera security guard.
   “Thank God!” Victor cried. “Am I glad to see you!”
   “Who are you?” the man demanded, his heavy accent clearly Spanish.
   “Victor Frank,” Frank said. “I’m one of the officers of Chimera. I’m surprised you don’t recognize me. I’m also VJ’s father.”
   “Okay,” the guard said. The dog growled.
   “And your name?” Victor asked.
   “Ramirez,” the guard said.
   “I’ve never met you,” Victor said. “But I’m glad you were on the other end of that chain.” Victor started for the door. Ramirez grabbed his arm to restrain him.
   Surprised by this, Victor stared at the man’s hand wrapped around his arm. Then he looked him in the eye and said, “I just told you who I am. Would you please let go of me?” Victor tried to sound stern, but he already felt Ramirez had the best of the situation.
   The dog growled. His bared teeth were inches away from Victor.
   “I’m sorry,” said Ramirez, not sounding sorry at all. “No one is allowed through that door unless VJ specifically says it is okay.”
   Victor examined Ramirez’s expression. There was no doubt the man meant what he said. Victor wondered what to do in this ridiculous situation. “Maybe we should call your supervisor, Mr. Ramirez,” Victor said evenly.
   “This is the graveyard shift,” Ramirez said. “I’m the supervisor.”
   They stared at each other for another minute. Victor was convinced of the man’s intransigence and of the dog’s power of persuasion. “Okay!” he said. Ramirez relaxed his grip and pulled the dog away.
   “In that case I’ll be leaving,” Victor said, keeping an eye on the dog. Victor decided that he would see to Ramirez in the morning. He’d take the matter up with VJ.
   Victor left the way he’d come in. Stopping at the gate to exit, he called the guard over to his car. “How long has a Ramirez been on the guard staff?” he asked.
   “Ramirez?” the guard questioned. “There isn’t any Ramirez on the force.”

13. Monday Morning

   The atmosphere at breakfast was anything but normal. Marsha had promised herself as she took her morning shower that she would act as if everything was fine, but she found it impossible. When VJ appeared for breakfast about fifteen minutes behind schedule, she told him he’d better hurry since it was a school day. She knew she was baiting him, but she couldn’t help herself.
   “Now that the secret is out,” VJ said, “I think it is rather ridiculous for me to go to school and pretend to be interested and absorbed in fifth-grade work.”
   “But I thought it was important to maintain your anonymity,” Marsha persisted.
   VJ glanced toward his father for support, but Victor calmly drank his coffee. He was staying out of it.
   “At this point, going to school or not going to school will in no way affect my anonymity,” VJ said coldly.
   “The law says you must go to school,” said Marsha.
   “There are higher laws,” VJ retorted.
   Marsha wasn’t going to make a stand alone. “Whatever you and Victor decide is fine with me,” she told them. She left for work before learning Victor’s decision.
   “She is going to be trouble,” VJ warned once she was gone.
   “She needs a little more time,” Victor said. “But you might have to come to some compromise on the school issue.”
   “I don’t see why. It’s not going to help my work. If anything, it will slow things down. Aren’t results more important?”
   “They’re important,” said Victor, “but they’re not everything. Now, how do you want to get to Chimera today? You want to ride with me?”
   “Nope,” said VJ. “I want to take my bike. Is it all right for Philip to use yours?”
   “Sure,” Victor said. “I’ll see you in your lab about midmorning. I’ll need the details on the implantation protein for the legal department to start the patent application. I also want to see the rest of your lab as well as the new lab.” Victor didn’t mention the episode with Ramirez earlier that morning.
   “Fine,” VJ said. “Just be careful about coming. I don’t want any other visitors.”
   Fifteen minutes later, VJ was plunging down Stanhope Street with the wind whistling past his head. Philip was right behind him on Victor’s bike, and behind Philip was Pedro in his Ford Taurus.
   VJ told Philip and Pedro to wait for him outside when he went into the bank with his saddlebags. Luckily Mr. Scott was occupied with another customer, and VJ was able to use his safe deposit box for another large deposit without getting a lecture.
   Victor’s ride to work was not as carefree. Although he tried to think of other things, his mind was haunted by Marsha’s words: “For an extremely rare cancer, a lot of people seem to be contracting it. People who cross VJ.” Victor was wondering just how he’d feel if Marsha contracted it. Just how was VJ prepared to handle trouble?
   Despite his apprehensions, Victor was fueled by enthusiasm for the new implantation protein project. He tackled the laborious administrative details that had accumulated by Monday morning with a good deal more equanimity than usual. He welcomed the busywork; it kept his mind from wandering. Colleen came in with her usual stack of messages and situations needing attention. Victor had her go through them rapidly before making any decisions, half hoping for some kind of communication that would suggest blackmail about the NGF project, but there was nothing.
   The most satisfying decision involved the question of whether Victor wanted to press charges against Sharon Carver. He told Colleen to let the parties know that he was willing to drop charges if the groundless sex-discrimination suit was also dropped.
   The final item that Victor requested Colleen to do was to schedule a meeting with Ronald so that he could confront the man about the problems associated with the NGF work. If that didn’t turn up anything, which he didn’t expect it would, he would schedule a meeting with Hurst. Hurst had to be the culprit; in fact, Victor prayed as much. More than anything else he wanted to uncover some hard evidence that he could lay in front of Marsha and say: “VJ had nothing to do with this.”

   Marsha found work intolerable. As much as she tried, she couldn’t maintain the degree of attention that was required for her therapy sessions. With no explanation, she suddenly told Jean to cancel the rest of the day’s appointments. Jean agreed but was clearly not pleased.
   As soon as Marsha finished with the patients already there, she slipped out the back entrance and went down to her car. She took 495 to 93 and turned toward Boston. But she didn’t stop in Boston. She continued on the South East Expressway to Neponset, then on to Mattapan.
   With the address slip unfolded on the seat next to her, Marsha searched for Martinez Enterprises. The neighborhood was not good. The buildings were mostly decaying wood-frame three-deckers with occasional burnt-out hulks.
   The address for Martinez Enterprises turned out to be an old warehouse with no windows. Undaunted, Marsha pulled over to the curb and got out of her car. There was no bell of any kind. Marsha knocked, timidly at first, but when there was no response, she pounded harder. Still there was no response.
   Marsha stepped back, eyeing the building’s door, then the façade. She jumped when she realized that at the left-hand corner of the building a man in a dark suit and white tie was watching her. He was leaning against the building with a slightly amused expression. A cigarette was tucked between his first and second fingers. When he noticed that Marsha had spotted him, he spoke to her in Spanish.
   “I don’t speak Spanish,” Marsha said.
   “What do you want?” the man asked with a heavy accent.
   “I want to talk with Orlando Martinez.”
   At first the man didn’t respond. He smoked his cigarette, then tossed it into the gutter. “Come with me,” he said and disappeared from sight.
   Marsha walked to the edge of the building and glanced down a litter-filled alleyway. She hesitated while her better judgment told her to go back and get into her car, but she wanted to see this through. She followed the man. Halfway down the alley was another door. This one was ajar.
   The inside of the building looked the same as the outside. The major difference was the interior had a damp, moldy smell. The walls were unpainted concrete. Bare light bulbs were held in ceramic ceiling fixtures. Near the back of the cavernous room was a desk surrounded by a group of mismatched, threadbare couches. There were about ten men in the room, all in various states of repose, all dressed in dark suits like the man who had brought Marsha inside. The only man dressed differently was the man at the desk. He had on a lacy white shirt that was worn outside his pants.
   “What do you want?” asked the man at the desk. He also had a Spanish accent, but not nearly as heavy as the others’.
   “I’m looking for Orlando Martinez,” Marsha said. She walked directly up to the desk.
   “What for?” the man asked.
   “I’m concerned about my child,” Marsha said. “His name is VJ, and I’d been told that he has some association with Orlando Martinez of Mattapan.”
   Marsha became aware of a stir of conversation among the men on the couches. She shot a look at them, then back to the man at the desk.
   “Are you Orlando Martinez?” Marsha asked.
   “I could be,” the man said.
   Marsha looked more closely at the man. He was in his forties, with dark skin, dark eyes, and almost black hair. He was festooned with all manner of gold jewelry and wore diamond cuff links. “I wanted to ask you what business you have with my son.”
   “Lady, I think I should give you some advice. If I were you, I’d go home and enjoy life. Don’t interfere in what you don’t understand. It will cause trouble for everyone.” Then he raised his hand and pointed at one of the other men. “José, show this lady out before she gets herself hurt.”
   José came forward and gently pulled Marsha toward the door. She kept staring at Orlando, trying to think of what else she could say. But it seemed useless. Turning her head, she happened to catch a glimpse of a dark man on one of the couches with one eyelid drooping over his eye. Marsha recognized him. She’d seen him in VJ’s lab when Victor took her there.
   José didn’t say anything. He accompanied Marsha to the door, then closed it in her face. Marsha stood facing the blank door, not sure if she should be thankful or irritated.
   Returning to the street, she got into her car and started it up. She got halfway down the block when she saw a policeman. Pulling to the curb, Marsha rolled her window down.
   “Excuse me,” she said, then pointed back to the warehouse. “Do you have any idea what those people do in that building?”
   The policeman stepped off the curb and bent down to see exactly where Marsha was pointing. “Oh, there,” he said. He straightened. “I don’t know for sure, but I was told a group of Colombians are setting up some kind of furniture business.”

   As soon as Victor had the opportunity, he phoned Chad Newhouse, the director of security and safety. Victor asked the man about Ramirez.
   “Sure, he’s a member of the force,” Chad said. “He’s been on the payroll for a number of years. Is there a problem?”
   “Was he hired through normal channels?” Victor inquired.
   Chad laughed. “Are you trying to pull my leg, Dr. Frank? You hired Ramirez along with the rest of that special industrial espionage team. He’s responsible directly to you.”
   Victor hung up the phone. He would have to talk with VJ about Ramirez.
   After the administrative work was done and the meeting with Ronald scheduled for eleven-fifteen, Victor left for VJ’s lab. Before he got to the clock tower building, he stepped into the shadow of one of the other deserted buildings and made certain he was not being observed. Only then did he run across the street into the clock tower building.
   One knock brought up the trapdoor. Victor scampered down. Several of the guards in the Chimera uniforms were sitting around, entertaining themselves with cards and magazines. VJ came into the room through the door that Victor had tried to enter on his last visit, wiping his hands on a towel. His eyes had a more intense look than usual.
   “Did you come here to the lab last night?” VJ demanded.
   “I did—” Victor said.
   “I don’t want you to do that,” VJ interrupted sternly. “Not unless I authorize it. Understand? I need a little respect and privacy.”
   Victor regarded his son. For a moment he was speechless. Victor had planned on being angry about the episode, but suddenly he was on the defensive. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean any harm. I was curious about what other facilities you had down here.”
   “You’ll see them soon enough,” VJ said, his voice softening. “First I want you to see the new lab.”
   “Fine,” Victor said, relieved to have the ill feelings dissipate so quickly.
   They used Victor’s car, left Chimera, and crossed the bridge over the Merrimack. While Victor was driving he brought up the question of Ramirez.
   “I inserted a number of security people into the Chimera payroll,” VJ said. “If you are concerned about the expense, just remember the enormous benefit Chimera is about to accrue from such a small investment.”
   “I wasn’t concerned about the payroll,” Victor said. It was the ease with which VJ was able to do whatever he wanted that bothered him.
   With VJ’s directions, they soon pulled up to one of the old mills across the river from Chimera. VJ was out of the car first, eager to show Victor his creation.
   The building was set right on the river. The clock tower building was in clear view on the other bank. But unlike VJ’s previous quarters, the new lab was modern in every respect, including its decor. It had three floors and was the most impressive setup Victor had ever seen. In the basement were animal rooms, operating theaters, huge stainless-steel fermentors, and a cyclotron for making radioactive substances. On the first floor was an NMR scanner, a PET scanner, and a whole microbiology laboratory. The second floor had most of the general laboratory space and most of the sophisticated equipment necessary for gene manipulation and fabrication. The third and top floor was devoted to computer space, library, and administrative offices.
   “What do you think?” VJ asked proudly as they stood in the hall on the third floor. They had to move frequently as there were workmen everywhere, installing the most recently delivered equipment, doing last-minute painting and carpentry.
   “Like everything you’ve done, I’m simply astounded,” Victor said. “But this has cost a fortune. Where did the money come from?”
   “One of my side projects was to develop a marketable product from recombinant DNA technology,” VJ said. “Obviously it succeeded.”
   “What’s the product?” Victor asked eagerly.
   VJ grinned. “It’s a trade secret!”
   VJ then went to a closed door, opened it a crack, glanced inside, then turned back to Victor. “I’ve got one more surprise for you. There’s someone I’d like you to meet.”
   VJ threw the door open and gestured for Victor to go inside. A young woman bent over a desk straightened up, saying, “Dr. Frank! What a surprise!”
   For a moment Victor didn’t know what to say. He was looking at someone he’d never expected to see again: Mary Millman, the surrogate who’d carried VJ.
   VJ reveled in his father’s shock. “I needed a good secretary,” he explained, “so I brought her in from Detroit. I have to admit I was curious to meet the woman who gave birth to me.”
   Victor shook Mary’s hand, which she’d put out to him. “Nice to see you again,” he said, somewhat dazed.
   “Likewise,” Mary said.
   “Well,” VJ said with a laugh, “I really should get back to my lab.”
   Victor self-consciously looked at his watch. “I’ve got to go myself.”

   The meeting with Ronald Beekman was a waste of time. Victor had tried to be confrontational about the NGF project to find out whether Ronald knew anything about it. But Ronald had said neither yes nor no, cleverly sensing this was an issue that might provide him with some leverage. When Victor had reminded him that at their last meeting Ronald had threatened to get even and make Victor’s life miserable, Ronald had just brushed it off as being a figure of speech. So Victor left the man’s office not knowing any more than he had when he’d entered.
   The only possible potential benefit of the meeting was that Ronald had indicated a sharp interest in the implantation project, and Victor had promised to put something together for him to read.
   Leaving Ronald’s office, Victor headed back to his own. He’d ask Colleen to arrange a meeting with Hurst. Victor wasn’t looking forward to it.
   “Robert Grimes called you from your lab,” Colleen said as soon as Victor entered the office. “He said he has something very interesting for you. He wants you to call him immediately.”
   Victor sat down heavily at his desk. Under normal circumstances such a message from his head technician would have made him tingle with anticipation. It would have heralded some breakthrough on one of the experiments. But now it had to be something else. It had to involve the special work that Victor had given Robert, and Victor wasn’t sure he wanted to hear “something very interesting.”
   Fortifying himself as best he could, Victor made the call and waited for Robert to be located. While Victor waited he thought about his own experiments and realized that they now held very little interest for him. After all, VJ had solved most of the questions involved. It was humbling for Victor to be so far behind his ten-year-old son. But the good side was what they would be able to accomplish together. That was thrilling indeed.
   “Dr. Frank!” Robert said suddenly into the phone, waking Victor from his musings. “I’m glad I found you. I’ve pretty well sequenced the DNA fragment in the two tumors, and I wanted to make sure you wanted me to go ahead and reproduce the sequence with recombinant techniques. It will take me some time to do, but it is the only way we’ll be able to ascertain exactly what it codes for.”
   “Do you have any idea what it codes for?” Victor asked hesitantly.
   “Oh, yeah,” Robert said. “It’s undoubtedly some kind of unique polypeptide growth factor.”
   “So it’s not some kind of retro virus,” Victor said with a ray of hope, thinking that a retro virus could have been an infectious particle artificially disseminated.
   “Nope, it’s certainly not a retro virus,” Robert said. “In fact, it’s some kind of artificially fabricated gene.” Then with a laugh he added, “I’d have to call it a Chimera gene. Within the sequence is an internal promoter that I’ve used myself on a number of occasions—one taken from the SV40 simian virus. But the rest of the gene had to come from some other microorganism, either a bacterium or a virus.”
   There was a pause.
   “Are you still there, Dr. Frank?” Robert asked, thinking the connection had broken.
   “You’re sure about all this?” Victor asked, his voice wavering. The implications were becoming all too clear.
   “Absolutely,” Robert said. “I was surprised myself. I’ve never heard of such a thing. My first guess was that these people picked up some kind of DNA vector and it got into their bloodstreams. That seemed so strange that I gave it a lot more thought. The only possible mechanism that I could come up with involves red-blood-cell bags filled with this infective gene. As soon as the Kupffer cells in the liver picked them up, the infective particles inserted themselves into the cell’s genome. The new genes then turned proto-oncogenes into oncogenes, and bingo: liver cancer. But there’s only one problem with this scenario. You know what it is?”
   “No, what?”
   “There’s only one way that RBC membrane bags could get into somebody’s bloodstream,” Robert said, oblivious to the effect all this was having on Victor. “They would have to be injected. I know that—”
   Robert never had a chance to finish his sentence. Victor had hung up.
   The mounting evidence was incontrovertible. There was no denying it: David and Janice had died of liver cancer caused by a piece of foreign DNA inserting itself into their chromosomes. And on top of that, there was the instructor from Pendleton Marsha had told him about. All these people were intimately related to VJ. And VJ was a scientific genius with an ultramodern, sophisticated laboratory at his disposal.
   Colleen poked her head in. “I was waiting for you to get off the phone,” she said brightly. “Your wife is here. Can I send her in?”
   Victor nodded. Suddenly he felt extremely tired.
   Marsha came into the room and closed the door forcibly. The wind rustled the papers on Victor’s desk. She walked directly over to Victor and leaned forward over his blotter, looking him directly in the eye.
   “I know you would rather not do anything,” she said. “I know you don’t want to upset VJ, and I know you are excited about his accomplishments, but you are going to have to face the reality that the boy is not playing by the rules. Let me tell you about my latest discovery. VJ is involved with a group of Colombians who are supposedly opening a furniture import business in Mattapan. I met these men and let me tell you, they don’t look like furniture merchants to me.”
   Marsha stopped abruptly. Victor wasn’t reacting. “Victor?” Marsha said questioningly. His eyes had a dazed, unfocused look.
   “Marsha, sit down,” Victor said, shaking his head with sad, slow deliberation. He cradled his head in his hands and leaned forward, resting his elbows on his desk. Then he ran his fingers through his hair, rubbed his neck, and straightened up. Marsha sat down, studying her husband intently. Her pulse began to race.
   “I’ve just learned something worse,” Victor said. “A few days ago I got samples of David’s and Janice’s tumors. Robert has been working on them. He just called to tell me that their cancers had been artificially induced. A foreign cancer-causing gene was put into their bloodstreams.”
   Marsha cried out, bringing her hands to her mouth in dismay. Even though she had begun to suspect as much, the confirmation was as horrifying as if she’d been given the news cold. Coming from Victor, who’d fought her tooth and nail when it came to hear fears and apprehensions, made it all the more damning. She bit her lower lip while she quivered with a combination of anger, sadness, and fear. “It had to be VJ!” she whispered.
   Victor slammed his palm on top of his desk, sending papers flying. “We don’t know that for sure!” he shouted.
   “All these people knew VJ intimately,” Marsha said, echoing Victor’s own thoughts. “And he wanted them out of the way.”
   Victor shook his head in grim resignation. How much blame lay at his door, and how much lay at VJ’s? He was the one who’d ensured the boy’s brilliance. But did he stop for one second to think what might go hand in hand with that genius? If David and Janice and that teacher had died by VJ’s hand, Victor wasn’t sure he could live with his conscience.
   Marsha began hesitantly, but her conviction made her strong. “I think we have to know exactly what VJ is doing in the rest of that lab of his.”
   Victor let his arms fall limply to his side and stared out the window. He looked at the clock tower, knowing that VJ was working there right now. He turned to Marsha and said, “Let’s go find out.”

14. Monday Afternoon

   Marsha had to run to keep up with Victor as he made his way toward the river. The two soon left the renovated part of the complex behind. In broad daylight the abandoned buildings did not look quite so sinister.
   Entering the building, Victor went straight to the trapdoor, bent down, and rapped sharply on the floor several times.
   In a minute or two the trapdoor came up. A man in a Chimera security uniform eyed Victor and Marsha warily, then motioned for them to descend.
   Victor went first. By the time Marsha was down the stairs, Victor had rounded the paddle wheel and was heading toward the intimidating metal door barring the entrance to the unexplored portion of VJ’s lab. For Marsha, the lab itself was as forbidding as it had been the last time she’d been there. She knew that the fruits of scientific research could be put to good or evil use, but something about the eerie basement quarters gave Marsha the feeling that the research conducted here was for a darker purpose.
   “Hey!” yelled one of the guards, seeing Victor approach the restricted door. He jumped up and sprinted across the room diagonally, and grabbed Victor by the arm. He pulled him around roughly. “Nobody’s allowed in there,” he snarled in his strong Spanish accent.
   To Marsha’s surprise, Victor put his hand squarely on the man’s face and pushed him back. The gesture took the man by surprise, and he fell to one knee, but he maintained a hold on Victor’s jacket sleeve. With a forcible yank, Victor shook free of the man’s grasp and reached around to the door.
   The security guard pulled a knife from his boot and flicked it open. A flash of light glinted off its razor surface.
   “Victor!” Marsha screamed. Victor turned when he heard her scream. The guard came at him, holding the knife out in front of his body like a miniature rapier. Victor parried the thrust but the man got hold of his arm. The knife rose menacingly.
   “Stop it!” VJ yelled as he burst through the door toward which Victor had been heading. The two other security men who were in the room got between the two combatants, one restraining Victor, the other dealing with the knife-wielding guard.
   “Let my father go!” VJ commanded.
   “He was going into the back lab,” the guard with the knife cried.
   “Let him go,” VJ ordered even more sternly than before.
   Victor was released with a shove. He staggered forward, trying to maintain his balance. Doing so, he made another move for the door. VJ reached out and grasped his arm just as Victor was about to push through to the other side.
   “Are you sure you’re ready for this?” VJ asked.
   “I want to see it all,” Victor said flatly.
   “Remember the Tree of Knowledge?”
   “Of Good and Evil,” countered Victor. “You can’t talk me out of this.”
   VJ pulled his hand back. “Suit yourself, but you may not appreciate the consequences.”
   Victor looked to Marsha, who nodded for him to go. Turning again to the door, he pulled it open. Pale blue light flooded out. Victor stepped over the threshold with Marsha right behind him. VJ followed, then pulled the door closed.
   The room was about fifty feet long and rather narrow. On a long bench built of rough-hewn lumber sat four fifty-gallon glass tanks. The sides were fused with silicone. The tanks were illuminated by heat lamps and gave off the eerie blue light as it refracted through the contained fluid.
   Marsha’s jaw dropped in horror when she realized what was in the tanks. Inside each one and enveloped in transparent membranes were four fetuses, each perhaps eight months old, who were swimming about in their artificial wombs. They watched Marsha as she walked down the aisle, their blue eyes fully open. They gestured, smiled, and even yawned.
   Casually, but with an air of arrogant pride, VJ gave a cursory explanation of the system. In each tank the placentas were plastered onto a plexiglass grid against a membrane bag connected to a sort of heart-lung machine. Each machine had its own computer, which was in turn attached to a protein synthesizer. The liquid surface of each tank was covered with plastic balls to retard evaporation.
   Neither Marsha nor Victor could speak, so appalled were they by the sight of the gestating children. Although they had tried to prepare themselves for the unexpected, this was a shock too outrageous to behold.
   “I’m sure you’re wondering what this is all about,” VJ said, moving up to one of the tanks and checking one of the many read-out devices. He hit it with his fist and a stuck needle indicator sprang into the green-painted normal zone. “My early work on implantation had me modeling wombs with tissue culture. Solving the implantation problem also solved the problems of why a uterus was needed at all.”
   “How old are these children?” Marsha asked.
   “Eight and a half months,” VJ said, confirming Marsha’s impression. “I’ll be keeping them gestating a lot longer than the usual nine months. They will be easier to raise the longer I keep them in their tanks.”
   “Where did you get the zygotes?” Victor asked, although he already knew the answer.
   “I’m pleased to say that they are my brothers and sisters.”
   Marsha’s incredulous gaze went from the fetuses in the tanks to VJ.
   VJ laughed at her expression. “Come now, this can’t be that much of a surprise. I got the zygotes from the freezer in Father’s lab. No sense letting them go to waste or letting Dad implant them in other people.”
   “There were five,” Victor said. “Where’s the fifth?”
   “Good memory,” VJ said. “Unfortunately, I had to waste the fifth on an early test of the implantation protocol. But four is plenty for statistical extrapolation, at least for the first batch.”
   Marsha turned back to the gestating children. They were her own!
   “Let’s not be too surprised at all this,” VJ said. “You knew this technology was on its way. I’ve just speeded it up.”
   Victor went up to one of the computers as it sprang to life and spewed out a half page of data. As soon as it was finished printing, the protein synthesizer turned on and began making a protein.
   “The system is sensing the need for some kind of growth factor,” VJ explained.
   Victor looked at the print-out. It included the vital signs, chemistries, and blood count of the child. He was astounded at the sophistication of the setup. Victor knew that VJ had had to artificially duplicate the fantastically complicated interplay of forces necessary to take a fertilized egg to an entire organism. The feat represented a quantum leap in biotechnology. A radically new and successful implantation technology was one thing, but this was entirely another. Victor shuddered to consider the diabolic potential of what his creation had created.
   Marsha timidly approached one of the tanks and peered in at a boy-child from closer range. The child looked back at her as if he wanted her; he put a tiny palm up against the glass. Marsha reached out with her own and laid her hand over the child’s with just the thickness of the glass separating them. But then she drew her hand back, revolted. “Their heads!” she cried.
   Victor came up beside her and leaned toward the child. “What’s the matter with his head?”
   “Look at the eyebrows. Their heads slant back without foreheads.”
   “They’re mutated,” VJ explained casually. “I removed Victor’s added segment, then destroyed some of the normal NGF loci. I’m aiming at a level of intelligence similar to Philip’s. Philip has been more helpful in aiding me in all my efforts than anyone else.”
   Marsha shuddered, gripping Victor’s hand out of VJ’s sight. Victor ignored her and pointed to the door at the end of the room. “What’s beyond that door?”
   “Haven’t you seen enough?” VJ asked.
   “I’ve got to see it all,” Victor said. He left Marsha and walked down the length of the room. For a moment Marsha stared at the tiny boy-child with his prominent brow and flattened head. It was as if human evolution had stepped back five hundred thousand years. How could VJ deliberately make his own brothers and sisters—such as they were—retarded? His Machiavellian rationale made her shudder.
   Marsha pulled herself away from the gestation tanks and followed Victor. She had to see everything too. Could there really be anything worse than what she had just seen?
   The next room had huge stainless-steel containers lined in a row. They looked like giant kettles she’d seen at a brewery when she was a teenager. It was warmer and more humid in this room. Several men without shirts labored over one of the vats, adding ingredients to it. They stopped working and looked back at Victor and Marsha.
   “What are these tanks?” Marsha asked.
   Victor could answer. “They’re fermentors for growing microorganisms like bacteria or yeast.” Then he asked VJ, “What’s growing inside?”
   “E. coli bacteria,” VJ said. “The workhorse of recombinant DNA technology.”
   “What are they making?” Victor said.
   “I’d rather not say,” VJ answered. “Don’t you think the gestational units are enough for one day?”
   “I want to know everything,” Victor said. “I want it all out on the table.”
   “They are making money,” VJ said with a smile.
   “I’m not in the mood for riddles,” Victor said.
   VJ sighed. “I had the short-term need for a major capital infusion for the new lab. Obviously, going public wasn’t an alternative for me. Instead, I imported some coca plants from South America and extracted the appropriate genes. I then inserted these genes into a lac operon of E. coli, and using a plasmid that carried a resistance to tetracycline, I put the whole thing back into the bacteria. The product is marvelous. Even the E. coli love it.”
   “What is he saying?” Marsha asked Victor.
   “He’s saying that these fermentors are making cocaine,” Victor said.
   “That explains Martinez Enterprises,” Marsha said with a gasp.
   “But this production line is purely temporary,” VJ explained. “It is an expedient means of providing immediate capital. Shortly the new lab will be running on its own merit without the need for contraband. And yes, Martinez Enterprises is a temporary partner. In fact, we can field a small army on a moment’s notice. For now, a number of them are on the Chimera payroll.”
   Victor walked down the line of fermentors. The degree of sophistication of these units also amazed him. He could tell at a glance they were far superior to what Chimera was using. Victor pulled away from them with a heavy sigh and rejoined Marsha and VJ.
   “Now you’ve seen it all,” said VJ. “But now that you have, we have to have a serious talk.”
   VJ turned and walked back toward the main room with Victor and Marsha following. As they passed through the gestation room, the fetuses again moved to the glass. It seemed they longed for human company. If VJ noticed, he didn’t show it.
   Without a word, VJ led them through the main room, back into the living quarters. Victor realized then that even here there was space he had not seen. There was a smaller room off the main area. Judging fróm the decor and journals, Victor guessed this was where VJ stayed. There was one bed, a card table with folding chairs, a large bookcase filled with periodicals, and a reading chair. VJ motioned toward the card table and sat down.
   Victor and Marsha sat down as well. VJ had his elbows on the table with his hands clasped. He looked from Victor to Marsha, his piercingly blue eyes sparkling like sapphires. “I have to know what you are planning to do about all this. I’ve been honest with you, it’s time you were honest with me.”
   Victor and Marsha exchanged glances. When Victor didn’t speak, Marsha did: “I have to know the truth about David, Janice, and Mr. Cavendish.”
   “At the moment, I’m not interested in peripheral issues,” VJ said. “I’m interested in discussing the magnitude of my projects. I hope you can appreciate the enormity of these experiments. Their value transcends all other issues that otherwise might be pertinent.”
   “I’m afraid I have to know about these people before I can judge,” Marsha said calmly.
   VJ glanced at Victor. “Is this your opinion also?”
   Slowly, Victor nodded.
   “I was afraid of this,” VJ murmured. He eyed them both severely, as though he was their parent and they were his erring children. Finally he spoke. “All right, I’ll answer your questions. I’ll tell you everything you want to know. The three people you mentioned were planning to expose me. At that point it would have been devastating for my work. I tried to keep them from finding out much about the lab and my experiments, but these three were relentless. I had to let nature handle it.”
   “What does that mean?” Victor asked.
   “Through my extensive research on growth factors involved in solving the problem of the artificial womb, I discovered certain proteins that acted as powerful enhancers for proto-oncogenes. I packed them in RBC sacs, then let nature take over.”
   “You mean you injected them,” Victor said.
   “Of course I injected them!” VJ snapped. “That’s not the kind of thing you can take orally.”
   Marsha tried to remain calm. “You’re telling me you killed your brother. And you felt nothing?”
   “I was only an intermediary. David died of cancer. I pleaded with him to leave me alone. But instead he followed me, thinking he could bring me down. It was his jealousy that drove him.”
   “And what about the two babies?” Marsha asked.
   “Can’t we talk about the major issues?” VJ demanded, pounding the table with his fist.
   “You asked what we were going to do about all this,” Marsha said. “First we have to know all the facts. What about the children?”
   VJ drummed his fingers on the surface of the card table. His patience was wearing thin. “They were getting too smart. They were beginning to realize their potential. I didn’t want the competition. A little cephaloclor in the day-care center’s milk was all it took. I’m sure it was good for most of the kids.”
   “And how did it make you feel when they died?” Marsha asked.
   “Relieved,” VJ said.
   “Not sorry or sad in any way?” Marsha persisted.
   “This isn’t a therapy session, Mother,” VJ snapped. “My feelings aren’t at issue here. You now know all the dark secrets. It’s your turn for some honesty. I need to know your intentions.”
   Marsha looked to Victor, hoping he would denounce VJ’s demonic actions, but Victor only stared blankly at VJ, too stunned for speech.
   Marsha interpreted his silence to mean acquiescence, possibly even approval. Could Victor be so caught up in VJ’s achievements that he could dismiss five murders? The murder of their own little boy? Well, she wasn’t going to take this silently. Victor be damned.
   “Well?” VJ demanded.
   Marsha turned to face him. His unblinking eyes looked at her in calm expectation. Their crystal blue color, so striking since birth, and his angelic blond hair, dissolved Marsha to tears. He was their baby, too, wasn’t he? And if he committed such horrors, was it really his fault? He was a freak of science. For whatever Victor had accomplished in terms of ensuring his brilliance, a conscience seemed to have been lost in the balance. If VJ were guilty, Victor was as culpable as he. Marsha felt a sudden wave of compassion for the boy. “VJ,” she began. “I don’t believe that Victor realized all the repercussions of his NGF experiment—”
   But VJ cut her off. “Quite the contrary,” he told her. “Victor knew precisely what he wanted to achieve. And now he can look at me and at what I’ve accomplished and know that he has been ultimately successful. I am exactly what Victor wanted and hoped for; I’m what he’d like to be himself. I am what science can be. I am the future.” VJ smiled. “You’d better get used to me.”
   “Maybe you are what Victor intended in scientific respects,” Marsha continued, undaunted. “But I don’t think he foresaw the kind of personality he was creating. VJ, what I’m trying to say is, if you did commit those murders, if you are manufacturing cocaine . . . and can’t see the moral objections to these actions, well, it’s not all your fault.”
   “Mother,” said VJ, exasperated, “you always get so sidetracked. Feelings, symptoms, personality. I reveal to you the greatest biological achievement of all time and you probably want me to take another Rorschach test. This is absurd.”
   “Science is not supreme,” Marsha said. “Morality must be brought to bear. Can’t you understand that?”
   “That’s where you’re wrong,” VJ said. “And Victor proved that he holds science above morality by the act of creating me. By conventional morality’s dictates, he should not have gone through with the NGF experiment, but he did anyway. He is a hero.”
   “What Victor did in creating you was born out of unthinking arrogance. He didn’t stop to consider the possible outcome; he was so obsessed with the means and his singular goal. Science runs amok when it shakes loose from the bonds of morality and consequence.”
   VJ clucked his tongue in disagreement. Then he turned his fierce blue eyes on Marsha. “Morality cannot rule science because morality is relative and therefore variable. Science is not. Morality is based on man and his society, which changes over the years, from culture to culture. What’s taboo for some is sacred for others. Such vagaries should have no bearing here. The only thing that is immutable in this world are the laws of nature that govern the present universe. Reason is the ultimate arbiter, not moralistic whims.”
   “VJ, it’s not your fault,” Marsha said softly, sadly shaking her head. There would be no reasoning with him. “Your superior intelligence has isolated you and made you a person who is missing the human qualities of compassion, empathy, even love. You feel you have no limits. But you do. You never developed a conscience. But you can’t see it. It’s like trying to explain the concept of color to someone blind since birth.”
   VJ leaped from his chair in disgust. “With all due respect,” he said, “I don’t have time for this sophistry. I’ve got work to do. I must know your intentions.”
   “Your father and I will have a talk,” Marsha said, avoiding VJ’s gaze.
   “Go ahead, talk,” VJ said, putting his hands on his narrow hips.
   “We’ll have a talk without children present,” Marsha said.
   VJ set his mouth petulantly. His breath had quickened, his eyes were afire. Then he turned and left the room. The door slammed and clicked. VJ had locked them in.
   Marsha turned to face Victor. Victor shook his head in helpless dismay.
   “Is there any question in your mind at this point what we’re dealing with?” Marsha asked.
   Victor shook his head lamely.
   “Good,” said Marsha. “Now, what are you prepared to do about it?”
   Victor only shook his head again. “I never thought it would come to this.” He looked at his wife. “Marsha, you have to believe me. If I’d known . . .” His voice broke off. He needed Marsha’s support, her understanding. But even he had trouble comprehending the magnitude of his error. If they ever got through this, he wasn’t sure he could live with himself. How could he expect Marsha to?
   Victor put his face in his hands.
   Marsha touched his shoulder. For as awful as the situation was, at least Victor had finally come to his senses. “We have to decide what to do now,” she said gently.
   Victor pulled himself up out of his chair, suddenly emboldened. “I’m the one responsible. You’re perfectly right about VJ. He wouldn’t be the way he is if it weren’t for me and my scientific meddling.” He turned again to his wife. “First, we have to get out of here.”
   Marsha looked at him gravely. “You think VJ is about to let us waltz out of here? Be reasonable! Remember how he’s handled trouble in the past? David, Janice, that poor teacher, those kids, and now his troublesome parents.”
   “You think he’ll just keep us here indefinitely?” Victor asked.
   “I haven’t the slightest idea of what his intentions are. I just don’t think it’s going to be so easy to get out. He must have some feeling for us. Otherwise he wouldn’t have even bothered explaining, and he wouldn’t be interested in our opinions or plans. But he certainly isn’t going to let us leave here until he’s convinced we’ll present no problem for him.”
   For a moment, the two were silent. Then Marsha said, “Maybe we could make some kind of bargain. Get him to let one of us go while the other stays here.”
   “So one of us becomes a hostage?”
   Marsha nodded.
   “If he’ll agree, I think you should go,” Victor told her.
   “Uh-uh,” Marsha said, shaking her head. “If it comes to that, then you go. You’ve got to figure out how to put a stop to him.”
   “I think you should go,” Victor said. “I can handle VJ better than you can at this point.”
   “I don’t think anybody can handle VJ,” said Marsha. “He’s in a world of his own, with no restraints and no conscience. But I’m confident he won’t harm me, at least not until he’s sure that I mean to cause him trouble. I do think he trusts you more than he trusts me. In that sense, you can deal with him better than I can. He seems to seek your approval. He wants to make you proud. In that respect he seems to be like any other child.”
   “But what to do?” said Victor, pacing. “I’m not sure the police would be a lot of help. The best route to go might be via the DEA. I suppose he’s the most vulnerable with the drug stuff.”
   Marsha only nodded. Tears sprang to her eyes. She couldn’t believe it had come to this. It was still hard to think of VJ as anything but her little boy. But there was no question: because of the nature of his genetic manipulation, he’d become a monster. There’d be no reining him in.
   “Could we get him committed to a psychiatric hospital?” Victor asked.
   “We’d be hard put to commit him without psychotic behavior, which he hasn’t demonstrated, or without getting him acquitted of murder by reason of insanity. But I doubt we could even get him indicted. I’m sure he was careful not to leave any evidence, especially with such a high-tech crime. He has a personality disorder, but he’s not crazy. You’re going to have to come up with something better than that. I only wish I could say what.”
   “I’ll think of something,” Victor assured her. He smoothed out his coat and ran his fingers through his hair in an attempt to comb it. Taking a deep breath, he tried the door. It was locked. He banged on it with his fist four times.
   After some delay the lock clicked and the door swung open. VJ appeared in the doorway with several of the South Americans backing him.
   “I’m ready to talk,” Victor said.
   VJ looked from Victor to Marsha. She looked away to avoid his cold stare.
   “Alone,” Victor added.
   VJ nodded and stepped aside while Victor crossed into the main living quarters. Victor walked directly out into the main lab as he heard VJ locking Marsha in. It was clear that he and Marsha really were prisoners, held by their own son.
   “She’s really upset,” Victor said. “Killing David. That was inexcusable.”
   “I didn’t have any choice,” VJ said.
   “A mother has a hard time dealing with that,” Victor said. VJ’s eyes didn’t blink.
   “I knew we shouldn’t have told Marsha about the lab,” said VJ. “She doesn’t have the same regard for science as we do.”
   “You’re right about that,” Victor said. “She was appalled at the artificial wombs. I was astounded by them. I know what an achievement they represent scientifically. The impact they’ll have on the scientific community will be stupendous. And their commercial potential is enormous.”
   “I’m counting on the commercial profits to enable me to dump the cocaine connection,” VJ said.
   “That’s a good idea. You’re putting your work in serious jeopardy dabbling in the drug business.”
   “I took that into consideration some time ago,” VJ said. “I have several contingency plans if trouble starts.”
   “I bet you do.”
   VJ eyed Victor closely. “I think you’d better tell me what your intentions are about my lab and my work.”
   “My main goal is to deal with Marsha,” Victor said. “But I think she’ll come around, once the shock of everything wears off.”
   “How do you plan to deal with her?”
   “I’ll convince her of the importance of your work and your discoveries,” Victor said. “She’ll feel differently once she understands that you’ve done more than any other person in the history of biology, and you are only ten years old.”
   VJ seemed to swell with pride. Marsha had been right: like any other kid, he sought his father’s praise. If only he really could be like any other kid, Victor thought ruefully. But he never will be, thanks to me.
   Victor continued. “As soon as possible, I’d like to see a list of the protein growth factors that are involved with the artificial womb.”
   “There are over five hundred of them,” VJ said. “I can give you a print-out, but of course it won’t be for publication.”
   “I understand,” Victor said. He glanced down at his son and smiled. “Well, I have to get back to work and I’m sure Marsha has patients to see. So I think we’ll be leaving. We’ll see you at home.”
   VJ shook his head. “I think it is too soon for you to leave. I think it will be better if you plan to stay for a few days. I have a phone hookup so you can do your business by phone. Mom will have to reschedule her patients. You’ll find it quite comfortable here.”
   Victor laughed a hollow laugh at this suggestion. “But you’re joking, of course. We can’t stay here. Marsha may be able to reschedule her patients, but Chimera can’t be put on hold. I have a lot of work to do. Besides, everyone knows I’m on the grounds. Sooner or later they’d start searching for me.”
   VJ considered the situation. “Okay,” he said at last. “You can go. But Mom will have to stay here.”
   Victor was impressed that Marsha had been able to anticipate him so correctly. “I’d be with her every minute,” Victor said, still trying to get them both out.
   “One or the other,” VJ said. “It’s not up for discussion.”
   “All right, if you insist,” said Victor. “I’ll tell Marsha. Be right back.”
   Victor made his way back to the door to VJ’s living quarters. One of the guards had to come and open it with a key. Victor went over to Marsha and whispered, “He’s agreed to let one of us out. Are you sure you don’t want to be the one to go?”
   Marsha shook her head no. “Please just contact Jean and tell her I won’t be available until further notice. Tell her to refer emergencies to Dr. Maddox.”
   Victor nodded. He kissed Marsha on the cheek, grateful she didn’t recoil. Then he turned to go.
   Back in the main lab room VJ was giving instructions to two of the guards.
   “This is Jorge,” VJ said, introducing Victor to a smiling South American. He was the same man who’d earlier tried to knife Victor. Apparently there were no hard feelings on his side, because along with the smile, he stuck out his hand for Victor to shake.
   “Jorge has offered to accompany you,” VJ said.
   “I don’t need a baby-sitter,” Victor said, suppressing his anger.
   With a grim smile, VJ said, “I don’t think you understand. It’s not your choice. Jorge is to stay with you to remind you not to be tempted to talk with anyone who might give me trouble. He will also remind you that Marsha is here with one of Jorge’s friends.” VJ let the threat hang unspoken.
   “But I don’t need a guard. And how will I explain him? Really, VJ, I didn’t expect this of you.”
   “I have perfect confidence that you will think of a way to explain him,” VJ said. “Jorge will make us all sleep just a little better. And let me warn you: trouble with the police or other authorities would only be a bother and slow the program, not stop it. Don’t disappoint me, Father. Together we will revolutionize the biotechnology industry.”
   Victor swallowed with difficulty. His mouth had gone dry.

15. Monday Afternoon

   The day had turned cloudy and blustery by the time Victor emerged from the clock tower building and set off for his office. A few steps behind him was Jorge, who’d made a show of displaying the knife he kept hidden in his right boot. But the gesture had had the desired effect. Victor knew that he was in the presence of a man accustomed to killing.
   Despite telling Marsha he’d think of something, Victor had no idea what to do. He was in a dazed frenzy by the time he reached his office. He traversed the pool of secretaries unsteadily, with Jorge one step behind him.
   “Excuse me!” Colleen said as Victor cruised by her desk. She jumped up, snatching a pile of messages. Victor had reached the door to his office. He turned to the South American. “You’ll have to wait out here,” he said.
   Jorge brushed past Victor as if Victor had not said anything. Colleen, who had witnessed the exchange, was appalled, especially since the South American was wearing a Chimera security uniform. “Should I call security?” she whispered to Victor.
   Victor said it wouldn’t be necessary. Colleen shrugged and got down to business. “I have a lot of messages,” she said. “I’ve been trying to call you. I need—”
   Victor placed his hand on her arm and eased her back so he could swing the door shut. “Later,” he told her.
   “But—” Colleen intoned as the door was shut in her face.
   Victor locked the door as an added precaution. Jorge had already made himself comfortable on the couch in the rear of the room. The man was casually attending to his fingernails.
   Victor went behind his desk and sat down. The phone rang immediately but he didn’t answer. He knew it was Colleen. He looked over at Jorge, who waved with his nail clipper and smiled a toothy grin.
   Victor let his head sink into his hands. What he needed was a plan. Jorge was an unwanted distraction. The man exuded a reckless, haughty confidence that said, “I’m a killer and I’m sitting in your office and you can’t do a thing about it.” It was difficult for Victor to concentrate with Jorge watching over him.
   “You don’t look like you’re doing much work to me,” Jorge said suddenly. “VJ said that you needed to leave because you had a lot of work to do. I suggest you get busy unless you want me to call VJ and tell him that you are just sitting around holding your head.”
   “I was just gathering my thoughts,” Victor said. He leaned over and pressed his intercom. When Colleen responded, he said, “Bring in my messages and let’s get to work.”

   For the first hour, Marsha occupied herself by looking through some of the hundreds of periodicals in the bookcase. But they were over her head; all were highly technical, devoted to theories and experiments on the cutting edge of biology, physics, and chemistry. She got up and paced the room and even tried the door, but, as expected, it was locked.
   She sat down at the table again, wondering what course of action Victor would take. He would have to be very resourceful. VJ was an exceptional adversary. He’d also have to have an enormous amount of moral courage, and in light of his NGF experiments, she had no idea if he had it in him.
   Just then the bolt of the lock was thrown and VJ stepped in. “I thought maybe you could use a little company,” he said cheerfully. “There’s someone I’d like you to meet.” He stepped aside and Mary Millman walked in smiling, her hand outstretched.
   Marsha stood up, searching for words.
   “Mrs. Frank!” Mary said, shaking her hand with enthusiasm. “I’ve been looking forward to seeing you. I thought I’d have to wait for at least another year. How are you?”
   “Fine, I guess,” Marsha said.
   “I thought you ladies would enjoy chatting,” said VJ. “I’ll be leaving this door ajar; if you’re hungry or thirsty, just let one of Martinez’s people know.”
   “Thank you,” Mary said. “Isn’t he wonderful?” she said to Marsha after he was gone.
   “He’s unique,” Marsha said. “How did you get here?”
   “It’s a surprise, isn’t it?” Mary said. “Well, it surprised me too, at the time. I’ll tell you how it happened.”

   “What next?” Victor asked. Colleen was sitting in her usual spot, directly across from him. Jorge was still back on the couch, lounging comfortably. Colleen shuffled through her papers and messages. “I think that does it for now. Anything you want me to do?” She rotated her eyes toward Jorge meaningfully.
   “Nope,” Victor said as he handed over the last document he had signed. “I’ll be heading home. If there are any problems, call me there.”
   After a quick glance at her watch, Colleen looked back at Victor. “Is everything all right?” He’d been acting strangely ever since he’d returned with the Chimera security guard in tow.
   “Everything is just hunky-dory,” he said, slipping his pen inside his top drawer.
   Colleen looked at her boss of seven years. He’d never used that term before. She stood up, gave Jorge a dirty look, and left the room.
   “Time to go,” Victor said to Jorge.
   Jorge pulled himself up from the couch. “We going back to the lab?” he asked in his heavy accent.
   “I’m going home,” Victor said, getting his coat. “I don’t know where you’re going.”
   “I’m with you, friend.”
   Victor was curious if there would be any troubles as he tried to drive off the site. But the guard at the gate saluted as usual. The fact that a Chimera guard was accompanying him drew no comment from the man stationed at the gate.
   As they were crossing the Merrimack, Jorge reached over and turned on the radio. He searched for and found a Spanish station. Then he turned up the sound to nearly deafening levels, snapping his fingers to the beat.
   It was clear to Victor that Jorge was his first hurdle. As he drove up the drive and rounded the house he began to think of his alternatives. There was a root cellar below the barn with a stout door Victor felt he could secure. The problem was luring the man into it.
   As they got out of the car, Victor let the garage door down, wondering if he could sneak up on Jorge and bop him on the head just as he’d been hit when he’d first stumbled onto VJ’s lab. Victor opened the door into the family room and left it open for Jorge, who insisted on walking behind.
   Victor took off his coat and draped it over the couch. Being a realist, he decided he couldn’t hit the man. He knew he’d hit him either too softly or too hard, and either would be a disaster. He’d have to try something else. But what?
   Victor was at a loss until he used the downstairs bathroom. Spotting a bottle of aspirin in the medicine cabinet, he remembered the old doctor’s bag he’d been given as a fourth-year medical student. He’d used it all the way through his training and, as far as he could remember, it was still filled with a variety of commonly prescribed drugs.
   Emerging from the bathroom, Victor found Jorge in front of the family room TV, flipping the channels aimlessly. Victor went upstairs. Unfortunately, Jorge followed. But in the upstairs study, Victor again got him interested in the television. Victor went into the closet and found the black bag.
   Taking a handful of Seconal, Valium, and Dalmane, Victor put the bag back, slipping the pills and capsules into his pocket. When he backed out into the room, he discovered that Jorge had found the Spanish cable station.
   “I usually have a drink when I get home,” Victor said. “Can I offer you anything?”
   “What do you have?” Jorge asked without taking his eyes from the TV.
   “Just about anything,” Victor said. “How about I make up some margaritas?”
   “What are margaritas?” Jorge asked.
   The question surprised Victor; he had thought margaritas were a popular South American drink. Maybe they were more Mexican than South American. He told Jorge what was in them.
   “I’ll have whatever you have,” Jorge said.
   Victor went down to the kitchen. Jorge followed, going back to the TV in the family room. Victor got out all the ingredients, including the salt. He made the drinks in a small glass pitcher, and, making sure that Jorge wasn’t paying attention, opened each of the capsules and poured the contents into the concoction. The Valium went in as is. There was still some sediment on the bottom even after Victor had vigorously stirred the mixture, so he put it on the blender for a moment. Then he held the pitcher up to the light. It looked fine. Victor estimated there was enough knockout power in the concoction to take someone through abdominal surgery without stirring.
   Victor took a tiny sip. It had a bitter aftertaste, but if Jorge had never had a margarita, he wouldn’t know the difference. Victor then put the salt around the rim of the glasses. He made his own drink out of pure lemon juice. When he was ready, he carried the two poured drinks and the pitcher over to the coffee table.
   Jorge took his drink without taking his eyes from the TV. Victor sat back and watched it himself. Some kind of soap opera was on the tube. Victor didn’t understand Spanish, but he got the drift quickly enough.
   Out of the corner of his eye, he watched Jorge swallow his drink, then lean forward and pour himself some more. Victor was pleased he was enjoying it so much. The first sign of an effect came quickly enough: Jorge began to blink a lot. He couldn’t focus on the TV. Finally he looked over at Victor, trying to focus as best he could. The alcohol must have carried the drugs into his system efficiently enough. Jorge had barely touched his second glass and he could barely keep his eyes open.
   All of a sudden, Jorge tried to get to his feet. He must have realized what was happening because he threw his glass across the room. Victor put his own glass down and grabbed Jorge as he tried to dial the phone. Jorge even attempted to pull out his knife, but his movements were already too uncoordinated and slow. Victor easily disarmed him. In another minute, Jorge was out cold. Victor laid his limp body on the couch. He got some parenteral Valium he kept upstairs and administered the man ten milligrams intramuscularly as a backup. Then he dragged his body across the courtyard and down alongside the barn. He got him into the root cellar and covered him with old blankets and rags to keep his body temperature steady. Then he locked the door with an old padlock.
   Returning to the house, Victor enjoyed his sense of accomplishment, and he thought he had the luxury of time to think of the next step. But as he came through the door, the phone rang. Its ringing scared him into wondering if someone were calling Jorge or if Jorge was supposed to check in now and then. Victor didn’t answer the phone. Instead, he put on his coat and went out to the car. Without coming up with another idea, he decided to go to the police.
   The police station was in the corner of the municipal green. It was a two-story brick structure with a pair of ornate brass post lamps topped with blue glass spheres. Victor pulled up to the front and parked in the visitor parking area. When he’d left the house, he’d felt good about having finally made a decision. He was looking forward to dumping the whole mess into somebody else’s lap. But as he climbed the front steps between the two spheres, he became less certain about going to the police.
   Victor hesitated just outside the front door. His biggest worry was Marsha, but there were other worries as well. Just as VJ had said, the police probably couldn’t do a whole lot, and VJ would be out on the street. The legal system couldn’t even handle simple punks, what would it do with a ten-year-old with the intelligence of two Einsteins put together?
   Victor was still debating with himself whether to go in or not when the door to the police station opened and Sergeant Cerullo came barging out, bumping into Victor.
   Cerullo juggled his hat, which had been jarred from his head, then excused himself vehemently before he recognized Victor. “Dr. Frank!” he said. He apologized again, then asked, “What brings you into town?”
   Victor tried to think of something that sounded reasonable but he couldn’t. The truth was too much in his mind. “I have a problem. Can I talk to you?”
   “Geez, I’m sorry,” Cerullo said. “I’m on dinner break. We gotta eat when we can. But Murphy is in at the desk. He’ll help you. When I get back from supper, I’ll make sure they treated you right. Take care.”
   Cerullo gave Victor’s arm a friendly punch, then pulled the door open for him. Whether he wanted to or not, Victor found himself inside.
   “Hey, Murphy!” Cerullo called. His foot held the door open. “This here is Dr. Frank. He’s a friend of mine. You treat him good, understand?”
   Murphy was a beefy, red-faced, freckled Irish cop whose father had been a cop and whose father’s father had been a cop. He squinted at Victor through heavy bifocals. “I’ll be with you in a minute,” he said. “Take a seat.” He pointed with his pencil to a stained and scarred oak bench, then went back to a form he was laboriously filling out.
   Sitting where he was advised, Victor’s mind went over the conversation he was about to have with Officer Murphy. He could see himself telling the policeman that he has a son who is an utter genius and who is growing a race of retarded workers in glass jars and who has killed people to protect a secret lab he built by blackmailing embezzlers in his father’s company. The mere fact of putting the situation into words convinced Victor that no one would believe him. And even if someone did, what would happen? There would be no way to associate VJ with any of the deaths. It was all circumstantial. As far as the lab equipment was concerned, it wasn’t stolen, at least not by VJ. As far as the cocaine was concerned, the poor kid was coerced by a foreign drug lord.
   Victor bit his lower lip. Murphy was still struggling with the form, holding the pencil in his meaty hand, his tongue slightly protruding from his mouth. He didn’t look up so Victor continued his daydream. He could see VJ shuffled through the legal system and out the back door. He’d have his fully modern lab up and running with a capability of almost anything. And VJ had already proven his willingness to eliminate those who dared to stand in his way. Victor wondered how long he and Marsha would live under those circumstances.
   With a sense of depression that bordered on tears, Victor had to admit to himself that his experiment had been too successful. As Marsha had said, he hadn’t considered the ramifications of success. He’d been too overwhelmed with the excitement of doing it to think of the result. VJ was more than he’d bargained for, and with the constitutional constraints of law enforcement, the social system was ill-equipped to deal with an alien like VJ. It was as if he were from another planet.
   “Okay,” Murphy said as he tossed his form into a wire mesh basket on the corner of his desk. “What can we do for you, Dr. Frank?” He cracked his knuckles after the strain of holding the pencil.
   Without much confidence, Victor got up and walked over to the duty desk. Murphy regarded him with his blue eyes. His shirt collar appeared too tight and the skin of his neck hung over it.
   “Well, watcha got, Doc?” Murphy asked, leaning back in his chair. He had large heavy arms, and he looked like just the kind of guy you’d like to have arrive if kids were stealing your hubcaps or removing your tape deck.
   “I have a problem with my son,” Victor began. “We found out that he’d been skipping school to—”
   “Excuse me, Doc,” Murphy said. “Shouldn’t you be talking to a social worker, somebody like that?”
   “I’m afraid the situation is beyond the ken of a social worker,” Victor said. “My son has decided to associate with criminal elements and—”
   “Excuse me for interrupting again, Doc,” Murphy said. “Maybe I should have said psychologist. How old is your boy?”
   “He’s ten,” Victor said. “But he is—”
   “I have to tell you that we have never gotten a call about him. What’s his name?”
   “VJ,” Victor said. “I know that—”
   “Before you go any further,” Murphy said, “I have to tell you that we have a lot of trouble dealing with juveniles. I’m trying to be helpful. If your son had done something really bad, like expose himself in the park or break into one of the widows’ houses, maybe it would be worth involving us. Otherwise I think a psychologist and maybe some old-fashioned discipline would be best. You get my drift?”
   “Yeah,” Victor said. “I think you are entirely right. Thanks for your time.”
   “Not at all, Doc,” Murphy said. “I’m being straight with you since you’re a friend of Cerullo’s.”
   “I appreciate it,” Victor said as he backed away from the desk. Then he turned and fled to his car. Once inside his car, Victor felt a tremendous panic. All of a sudden he realized that he alone had to deal with VJ. It was to be father against son, creator against creature. The comprehension brought forth a feeling of nausea that rose up into Victor’s throat. He opened the car door, but by shuddering he was able to dispel the nausea without vomiting. He closed the car door and leaned his forehead against the steering wheel. He was drenched in sudden sweat.
   From Old Testament studies as a child, the plight of Abraham came to Victor. But he knew there were two huge differences. God wasn’t about to intervene in this instance, and Victor knew that he could not kill his son with his hands. But it was becoming progressively clear that it would be VJ or Victor.
   Then, of course, there was the problem of Marsha. How was he to get her out of the lab? Another wave of panic settled over Victor. He knew that he had to act quickly before VJ’s intelligence could become a factor. Besides, Victor knew that if he didn’t act quickly, he might lose his nerve and commitment.
   Victor started the car and drove home by reflex as his mind struggled with coming up with some kind of plan. When he arrived at home, he first went to the root cellar and checked Jorge. He was sleeping like a baby, comfy and cozy beneath his mound of blankets and rags. Victor filled an empty wine bottle with water and left it by the man’s head.
   Coming into the house, the phone again frightened Victor. Victor looked at it and debated. What if it were Marsha? As it started its fourth ring, Victor snatched up the receiver. He said hello timidly, and for good reason. The voice on the other end was a man’s voice with a heavy Spanish accent. He asked for Jorge.
   Victor’s mind momentarily went blank. The voice asked for Jorge again, a bit more insistently.
   “He’s in the john,” Victor managed.
   Without understanding the Spanish, Victor could tell there was no comprehension. “Toilet!” Victor shouted. “He is in the toilet!”
   “Okay,” the man said.
   Victor hung up the phone. Another wave of panic spread through his body like a bolt of electricity. Time was pressing in on Victor like a runaway train approaching a precipice. Jorge could only be in the john for so long before an army would be sent out like the one that visited Gephardt’s home.
   Victor pounded his hand repeatedly on the counter top. He hoped that the violence of the act would shock him into getting hold of himself so that he could think. He had to come up with a plan.
   Fire was Victor’s first thought. After all, the clock tower building was ancient and the timber dry. He wanted to come up with some sort of cataclysmic event that would get rid of the entire mess in one fell swoop. But the problem with fire was that it could be extinguished. Half a job would be worse than nothing because then Victor would face VJ’s wrath, backed up by Martinez’s muscle.

   An explosion was a much better idea, Victor decided upon reflection. But how to pull it off? Victor was certain he could rig a small explosive device, but certainly not one capable of demolishing the entire building.
   He’d think of something, but first he had to get Marsha out. Going into his study, Victor took out the photocopies he’d made when he had been searching for a way into the building’s basement. He hoped he might get Marsha out through one of the tunnels. But from studying the floor plans, it immediately became clear that none of the tunnels entered the clock tower building anywhere near the living quarters where she was being held. He folded the plans and put them in his pocket.
   The phone rang again, further jangling Victor’s frayed nerves. Victor didn’t answer a second time. He knew he had to get out of the house. VJ or the Martinez gang were sure to get suspicious if Jorge remained incommunicado for long. Who could tell when they might show up to check for themselves?
   It was well past dark now, as Victor pulled out of the garage. He turned his lights on and headed for Chimera, praying to God he might come up with some sort of strategy for getting Marsha out and ridding the world of this Pandora’s box of his own creation.
   Victor suddenly jammed on his brakes, bringing his car to a screeching halt at the side of the road. Almost miraculously, a plan began to form in his mind. The details began to fall into place. “It might work,” he said through clenched teeth. Taking his foot from the brake, he stomped on the accelerator and the car leaped ahead.
   Victor could barely contain himself as he went through the rigmarole of gaining entry to Chimera. Once in, he drove directly to the building housing his lab and parked right in front of the door. Because of the late hour, the structure was deserted and locked. Victor fumbled with his keys and unlocked the door. When he got into his lab, he forced himself to stop for a moment to calm down. He sat down in a chair, closed his eyes, and tried to relax every muscle in his body. Gradually, his heart rate began to slow. Victor knew that to accomplish the first part of his plan he needed his wits about him. He needed a steady hand.
   Victor had all the things he needed in the lab. He had plenty of glycerin and both sulfuric and nitric acids. He also had a closed vessel with cooling ports. For the first time in his life, all the hours he’d spent in chemistry lab in college paid off. With ease he set up a system for the nitrification of the glycerin. While that was in progress, he prepared the neutralization vat. By far the most critical stage was carried out with an electrical drying apparatus which he set up under a ventilation hood.
   Before the drying was complete, Victor got one of the laboratory timing devices and a battery pack and hooked up a small ignition filament. The next step was the most trying. There was a very small amount of mercury fulminate in the lab. Victor carefully packed it gently into a small plastic container. Carefully, he pushed in the ignition filament and closed the cap.
   By this time the nitroglycerin was dry enough to be packed into an empty soda can that he’d retrieved from the wastebasket. When it was about one quarter full, Victor gently lowered the container with the ignition filament into the can until it rested on the contents. He then added the rest of the nitroglycerin and sealed the can with parrafin wax.
   Taking everything back to his lab office, Victor started a search for some appropriate container. Glancing into one of the technicians’ offices, he spotted a vinyl briefcase. Victor opened the latches and unceremoniously dumped the contents onto the individual’s desk. He carried the case back to his office.
   With the empty briefcase on his desk, Victor wadded up paper towels to create a cushioned bed. Carefully he laid the soda can, the battery pack, and the timing device on the crumpled paper towels. He then wadded up additional paper towels to fill the briefcase to overflowing. With gentle pressure, he forcibly closed and latched the lid.
   From the main part of the lab, Victor got a flashlight. He took out the plans that showed the tunnel network. He studied them carefully, noting that one of the main tunnels ran from the clock tower to the building housing the cafeteria. What was especially encouraging was that close to the clock tower, a tunnel led off in a westerly direction.
   Carrying the briefcase as carefully as possible, Victor crossed to the cafeteria building. Access to the basement was in a central stairwell. Victor went down into the basement and opened the heavy door that sealed the tunnel to the clock tower.
   Victor shined his flashlight into the tunnel. It was constructed of stone blocks. It reminded Victor of some ancient Egyptian tomb. He could only see about forty feet in front of him since the passageway turned sharply to the left after that. The floor was filled with rubble and trash. Water trickled in the direction of the river, forming black pools at intervals.
   Taking a deep breath for courage, Victor stepped into the cold, damp tunnel and pulled the door shut behind him. The only light was the swath cut by his flashlight beam.
   Victor set off, determined but cautious. Too much was at stake. He couldn’t fail. In the distance he could hear the sound of water running. Within a few minutes he’d passed a half dozen tunnels that branched off the main alley he was in. As he got closer to the river he could feel the falls’ throb as much as hear it.
   Victor felt something brush by his legs. Forgetting himself, he leaped back in terror, flailing the briefcase precariously. Once he’d calmed himself, he flashed a beam of light behind him. A pair of eyes gleamed in the beam of the ray. Victor shuddered, realizing he was staring at a sewer rat the size of a small cat. Summoning his courage, he pressed on.
   But only a few steps past the rat, Victor slid on the floor’s suddenly slippery surface. Frantic to maintain his balance, he had the presence of mind to hug the briefcase tightly as he fell against the wall of the tunnel. Victor stayed on his feet; he did not fall to the ground. Luckily, his elbow had slammed into the stone, not the case. If the briefcase had hit instead, or if he had fallen, it would undoubtedly have detonated.
   A second time, Victor began to make his nerve-racking way through the subterranean obstacle course. Finally, he came to the path that left the main tunnel at the proper angle; it had to be the tunnel that went west. With some confidence, Victor followed this tunnel until it entered the basement of the edifice immediately upriver from the clock tower building.
   Victor turned his flashlight off after noting where the stairs were located. He could not take the risk of the glow from the beam being seen by someone in the clock tower.
   The next forty feet were the worst of all. Victor moved a step at a time, advancing first his right foot, then bringing up his left. He skirted the debris as best he could, ever fearful of a fall.
   Finally, he got to the stairs and started up. Once he reached the first floor, he went to the nearest window and glanced at the clock tower building. A sliver of moon had risen in the eastern sky almost directly in line with the Big Ben replica. Victor surveyed the darkened hulk for ten minutes, but saw no one.
   He then looked toward the river. Lowering his gaze, he saw his goal. About forty feet from where he stood was the point where the old main sluice left the river, running toward the clock tower and into its tunnel.
   After one last look at the clock tower building to make sure there were no guards about, Victor left the building he was in and hurried over to the sluice. He kept as low to the ground as possible, knowing he was at his most vulnerable.
   When he got to the sluice he quickly went to the steep steps just behind the sluice gates. With no hesitation, he made his way down the steps, hugging the granite wall to stay as out of sight as possible. Reaching the floor, he was pleased to see that he could only make out a portion of the clock tower. That meant no one at the ground level could spot him.
   Wasting no time, Victor walked directly to the two rusted metal gates that held back the water in the millpond. There was a slight amount of leakage; a small stream dribbled along the floor of the sluice. Otherwise, the old gates were watertight.
   Bending down, Victor carefully laid the briefcase on the floor of the sluice. With equal care, he unsnapped the latches and raised the lid. The apparatus had survived the trip. Now he just had to set it to blow.
   Too little time would be a disaster; but so would too much. Surprise was his main advantage. But there was no good way to guess how much time he’d need for his next task. Finally, and a bit arbitrarily, he settled on thirty minutes. As gently as possibly, Victor opened the face of the laboratory timing device. On his hands and knees, he shielded the flashlight with his body and turned it on. In the spare light, he moved the minute hand of the timer.
   Victor killed the light and carefully closed the briefcase. Taking a deep breath, he carried it to the sluice gate and wedged it between the gate on the left and the steel rod that supported it. A single rusty bolt kept the steel rod in place. Victor felt that this bolt was the Achilles’ heel of the mechanism; he pushed the briefcase as close to the bolt as he could. Then he headed up the steep granite steps.
   Peering over the lip of the sluice, Victor looked for signs of life in the darkened clock tower building, but all was quiet. Keeping his head down low, he scampered back to the nearby building and descended into the tunnel system. He groped back to the cafeteria, already wishing he had given himself more than thirty minutes.
   Once out in the open air, Victor ran toward the river, slowing as the clock tower came into view. In case someone was on watch, he wanted to appear calm in his approach, not anxious or stealthy.
   Completely winded, Victor arrived at the front steps. He hesitated for a moment to catch his breath, but a glance at his watch horrified him. He only had sixteen minutes left. “My God,” he whispered as he rushed inside.
   Victor ran to the trapdoor and rapped on it three times. When no one came to open it, he rapped again with more force. Still no answer. Bending down, he felt around the floor for the metal rod he’d used on his last nighttime visit, but before he could find it, the trapdoor opened and light flooded up from below. One of Martinez’s people was there.
   Victor hopped down the stairs.
   “Where’s VJ?” he asked, trying to sound as calm as possible.
   The guard pointed to the gestation room. Victor started in that direction, but VJ pushed the door open before he got there.
   “Father?” VJ said with surprise. “I didn’t expect you until tomorrow.”
   “Couldn’t stay away,” Victor said with a laugh. “I finished up what I had to get done. Now it’s your mother’s turn. She has some patients who need her. She hasn’t made her hospital rounds.”
   Victor’s eyes wandered away from VJ and once again surveyed the room. What he needed to decide was where he should be at zero hour. He thought he’d have to be as close to the stairs as possible. The instrument that was the closest was the giant gas chromatography unit, and Victor decided that he’d allow it to occupy his attention when the time came.
   Directly in the middle of the wall facing the river was the opening of the sluice with its makeshift hatch constructed of rough-hewn timbers. Victor made a mental calculation of the force that would hit that door when the sluice gate blew and the water rushed in. The preceding concussion wave would be like an explosion, and combined with the force of the water, it could loosen the foundation and topple the whole building. Victor figured there would be an approximate twenty-second delay from the explosion to the moment the tsunami struck.
   “I think it might be too soon to let Marsha leave,” VJ said. “And it would be awkward for Jorge to be constantly with her.” VJ paused as his sharp eyes regarded his father. “Where is Jorge?”
   “Topside,” Victor said with a shiver of fear. VJ missed nothing. “He saw me down and stayed up there to smoke.”
   VJ glanced over at the two guards, who were reading magazines. “Juan! Go up and tell Jorge to come down here.”
   Victor swallowed uneasily. His throat was parched. “Marsha will not be a problem. I guarantee it.”
   “She hasn’t changed her opinion,” VJ said. “I’ve had Mary Millman try talking with her, but her obstinate moralistic stance is unshakable. I’m afraid she’ll make trouble.”
   Victor sneaked a look at his watch. Nine minutes! He should have allowed himself more time. “But Marsha is a realist,” he blurted. “She’s stubborn. That’s nothing new to either of us. And, you’ll have me. She wouldn’t try anything knowing you had me here. Besides, she wouldn’t know what to do even if she was tempted to do something.”
   “You’re nervous,” VJ said.
   “Of course I’m nervous,” Victor snapped. “Anybody would be nervous under the circumstances.” He tried to smile and appear more at ease. “Mainly, I’m excited—about your accomplishments. I’d like to see that list of growth factors for the artificial womb tonight.”
   “I’d be delighted to show it to you,” VJ admitted.
   Victor walked over and opened the door to the living quarters. “Well, that’s encouraging,” he said, looking at VJ. “You don’t feel you have to lock her in anymore. I’d say that was progress.”
   VJ rolled his eyes.

   Victor hurriedly went into the smaller room where Marsha and Mary were sitting.
   “Victor, look who’s here,” Marsha said, gesturing toward Mary.
   “We’ve already met,” Victor said, nodding at Mary.
   VJ was standing in the doorway with a grin on his face.
   “Not every kid has three legitimate biological parents,” Victor said, attempting to ease the tension. He glanced at his watch: only six minutes to go.
   “Mary has told me some interesting things about the new lab,” Marsha said with subtle sarcasm that only Victor could appreciate.
   “Wonderful,” said Victor. “That’s wonderful. But, Marsha, it’s your turn to leave. You have dozens of patients who are desperate for your attention. Jean is frantic. She’s called me three times. Now that I’ve handled my pressing problems, it’s your turn to go.”
   Marsha eyed VJ, then looked at Victor. “I thought that you were going to take care of things,” she said with irritation. “Valerie Maddox can handle any emergencies. I think it’s more important for you to do what you have to do.”
   Victor had to get her out of there. Why wouldn’t she just leave? Did she really not trust him? Did she really think he was just going to let this go on? Sadly, Victor realized that for the past few years he hadn’t given her much reason to expect better from him. Yet a solution was coming, and it was only a few frightening moments away.
   “Marsha, I want you to go do your hospital rounds. Now!”
   But Marsha wouldn’t budge.
   “I think she likes it here!” VJ joked. Then one of the security men called him from the main part of the lab and he left.
   Half-crazed with mounting anxiety, Victor leaned over to Marsha and, forgetting Mary, hissed: “You have to get out of here this instant. Trust me.”
   Marsha looked in his eyes. Victor nodded. “Please!” he moaned. “Get out of here!”
   “Is something going to happen?” Marsha asked him.
   “Yes, for chrissake!” Victor forcibly whispered.
   “What’s going to happen?” Mary said nervously, looking back and forth between the Franks.
   “What about you?” Marsha questioned, ignoring Mary.
   “Don’t worry about me,” Victor snapped.
   “You’re not going to do something foolish?” Marsha asked.
   Victor snapped his hands over his eyes. The tension was becoming unbearable. His watch said less than three minutes.
   VJ reappeared at the doorway. “Jorge is not upstairs,” he said to Victor.
   Mary turned to VJ. “Something is going to happen!” she cried.
   “What?” VJ demanded.
   “He’s doing something,” Mary said anxiously. “He’s got something planned.”
   Victor looked at his watch: two minutes.
   VJ called over his shoulder for Security, then grabbed Victor’s arm. Shaking him, he demanded, “What have you done?”
   Victor lost control. The tension was too much and fear overflowed into emotion, bringing a sudden gush of tears. For a moment he couldn’t talk. He knew that he had utterly failed. He’d not been up to the challenge.
   “What have you done?” VJ repeated as he shouted into Victor’s face, shaking him again. Victor did not resist.
   “We all have to get out of the lab,” Victor managed through his tears.
   “Why?” VJ questioned.
   “Because the sluice is going to open,” Victor wailed.
   There was a pause as VJ’s mind processed this sudden information.
   “When?” VJ demanded, shaking his father again.
   Victor looked at his watch. There was less than a minute. “Now!” he said.
   VJ’s eyes blazed at his father. “I counted on you,” he said with burning hatred. “I thought you were a true scientist. Well, now you are history.”
   Victor leaped up, knocking VJ to the side, where he tripped on the leg of a chair. Victor grabbed Marsha’s wrist and yanked her to her feet. He ran her through the living quarters and out into the main lab.
   VJ had regained his feet instantly and followed his parents, screaming for the security men to stop them.
   From their bench it was easy for the two security men to catch Victor, grabbing him by both arms. Victor managed to give Marsha a push up the stairs. She ran part way up, then turned back to the room.
   “Go!” Victor shouted at her. Then, to the two guards he urgently said, “This whole lab is about to disintegrate in seconds. Trust me.”
   Looking at Victor’s face, the guards believed him. They let go of him and fled up the stairs, passing Marsha.
   “Wait!” VJ cried from the middle of the lab floor. But the stampede had started. Even Mary brushed by him in her haste to get to the stairs.
   Marsha got out, with Mary following on her heels.
   VJ’s eyes blazed at his father. “I counted on you,” he raged. “I trusted you. I thought you were a man of science. I wanted to be like you. Guards!” he shouted. “Guards!” But the guards had fled along with the women.
   VJ whirled around, looking at the main lab. Then he looked over at the gestational room.
   Just then, the muffled roar of an explosion rocked the entire basement. A sound like thunder began to build and vibrate the room. VJ sensed what was coming and started to run for the stairs, but Victor reached out and grabbed him.
   “What are you doing?” VJ cried. “Let me go. We’ve got to get out of here.”
   “No,” Victor said over the din. “No, we don’t.”
   VJ struggled, but Victor’s hold was firm. Wryly, he realized for all his son’s vast mental powers, he still had the body—and strength—of a ten-year-old.
   VJ squirmed and tried to kick, but Victor hooked his free hand behind VJ’s knees and swept the boy off his feet.
   “Help!” VJ cried. “Security!” he cried, but his voice was lost in a low rumbling noise that steadily increased, rattling the laboratory glassware. It was like the beginnings of an earthquake.
   Victor stepped over to the crude door covering the opening of the sluice tunnel. He stopped five feet from it. He looked down into his son’s unblinking ice-blue eyes which stared back defiantly.
   “I’m sorry, VJ.” But the apology was not for what he was doing that minute. For that he was not sorry. But Victor felt he owned his son an apology for the experiment he’d carried out in a lab a little over ten years ago. The experiment that had yielded his brilliant but conscienceless son. “Good-bye, Isaac.”
   At that moment, one hundred tons of incompressible water burst through the sluice opening. The old paddle wheel in the center of the room turned madly, cranking the old rusted gears and rods for the first time in years and, for a brief moment, the giant clock in the top of the tower chimed haphazardly. But the undirected and uncontrolled water quickly pulverized everything in its path, undermining even the granite foundation blocks within minutes. Several of the larger blocks shifted, and the beams supporting the first floor began to fall through to the basement. Ten minutes after the explosion, the clock tower itself began to wobble and then, seemingly in slow motion, it crumbled. In the end, all that was left of the building and secret basement lab was a soggy mass of rubble.

Epilogue.
One Year Later

   “You have one more patient,” Jean said, poking her head through the door, “then you’re free.”
   “It’s an add-on?” Marsha asked, slightly perturbed. She had planned on being free by four. With another patient she wouldn’t be out until five. Under normal circumstances she wouldn’t have cared, but today she was supposed to meet Joe Arnold, David’s old history teacher, at six o’clock. He was taking her to the pet shop in the mall to pick up that golden retriever puppy he’d persuaded her to get. “It’ll do you good,” he told her. “Pet therapy. I’m telling you, dogs could put you psychiatrists out of business.”
   A few days after he’d read of the tragedy in the papers, he’d called Marsha to say how sorry he was and that he’d always regretted not contacting her to express his condolences after David’s death. Gradually, the two were becoming friends. Joe seemed determined to break her willful isolation.
   “The woman was insistent,” Jean said. “If I didn’t squeeze her in today, we couldn’t have seen her for a week. She say’s it’s an emergency.”
   “Emergency!” Marsha grumbled. True psychiatric emergencies were luckily few and far between. “Okay,” she said with a sigh.
   “You’re a dear,” Jean said. She pulled the door shut.
   Marsha went around her desk and sat down. She dictated her last session. When she was through, she whirled her chair around and gazed out the large picture window at the scenic landscape. Spring was coming. The grass had become a more vibrant green than its pale winter blue. The crocuses would be up soon. A few buds were already on the trees.
   Marsha took a deep breath. She’d come a long way. It was just a little over a year now since that fateful night when she’d lost her husband and second son in what had been deemed a freak accident. The newspapers had even carried a picture of the rusty bolt that had apparently given way on an old sluice gate when the Merrimack had been at its spring thaw heights. Marsha had never tried to contradict the story, preferring the nightmare to end with a seemingly accidental tragedy. It was so much simpler than the truth.
   Dealing with her grief had been exceedingly difficult. She’d sold the big house that she and Victor had shared, as well as her stock in Chimera. With some of the profits from these sales, she had bought herself a charming house on an ocean inlet in Ipswich. It was only a short walk to the beach with its glorious sand dunes. She’d spent many a weekend alone on the beach in pensive seclusion with no sounds to trouble her save the waves and an occasional squawk of a sea gull. Marsha had found solace in nature ever since she was a little girl.
   Neither Victor’s nor VJ’s body had been recovered. Evidently the tremendous force of the rushing water had washed them God knows where. But the fact there were no bodies made Marsha’s adjustment all the more difficult, though not for the reasons most psychiatrists would suspect. Jean had gently suggested to Marsha that she go in for some therapy herself, but Marsha resisted this encouragement. How could she explain that by not finding their remains, she was left with the uncomfortable sense that the horrid episode was not over yet. No remains of the four fetuses had been found either, not that anyone had known to look for them. But, for months after, Marsha had had disturbing nightmares in which she would come across a finger or a limb on the beach where she walked.
   Marsha’s biggest savior had been her work. After the initial shock and grief had abated, she’d really thrown herself into it, even volunteering for extra hours in various community organizations. And Valerie Maddox had also been of tremendous help, often staying with Marsha for weekends at Marsha’s new beach house. Marsha knew she was indebted to the woman.
   Marsha swung back to her desk. It was just about four o’clock. Time to see the last patient and then get to the pet store. Marsha buzzed Jean to indicate she was ready. Getting to her feet, she went to the door. Taking the new chart Jean handed her, Marsha caught sight of a woman who was about forty-five years old. She smiled at Marsha and Marsha smiled back. Marsha gestured for the woman to come into her office.
   Turning around, Marsha left the door ajar and walked over to the chair she always used for her sessions. Next to it was a small table with a box of tissues for patients who couldn’t contain their emotions. Two other chairs faced hers.
   Hearing the woman enter the office, Marsha turned to greet her. The woman wasn’t alone. A thin girl in her teens who looked sallow and drawn followed in behind her. The girl’s sandy blond hair was stringy and badly in need of a wash. In her arms was a blond baby who looked to be about eighteen months old. The baby was clutching a magazine.
   Marsha wondered who the patient was. Whichever one it was, she’d have to insist the other leave. For the moment, all she said was, “Please sit down.” Marsha decided to let them present their reasons for coming. Over the years, she’d found that this technique yielded more information than any question-and-answer session could.
   The woman held the child while the girl sat down in one of the chairs facing Marsha, then settled him in the girl’s lap. He seemed quite preoccupied with the magazine’s illustrations. Marsha casually wondered why they’d brought the child along. Surely it couldn’t be that difficult to get a baby-sitter.
   Marsha felt that the young girl was not in the best physical health. Her frail frame and extremely pale complexion indicated depression if not malnutrition.
   “I’m Josephine Steinburger and this is my daughter, Judith,” the woman began. “Thank you for seeing us. We’re pretty desperate.”
   Marsha nodded encouragingly.
   Mrs. Steinburger leaned forward confidentially, but spoke loudly enough for Judith to hear. “My daughter here is not too swift, if you know what I mean. She’s been in a lot of trouble for a long time. Drugs, running away from home, fighting with her brother, no-good friends, those kinds of things.”
   Marsha nodded again. She looked at the daughter to see how she responded to this criticism, but the girl only stared blankly ahead.
   “These kids are into everything these days,” Josephine continued. “You know, sex and all that. What a difference when I was young. I didn’t know what sex was until I was too old to enjoy it, you know what I mean?”
   Marsha nodded again. She hoped the daughter would participate, but she remained silent. Marsha wondered if she might be on drugs right then.
   “Anyway,” Josephine continued, “Judith here tells me she never had sex, so obviously I was surprised when she delivered this little bundle of joy about a year and a half ago.” She laughed sarcastically.
   Marsha wasn’t surprised. Of all the defense mechanisms, denial was the most common. A lot of teenagers initially tried to deny sexual contact even when the evidence was overwhelming.
   “Judith says that the father was a young boy who gave her money to put his little tube in her,” Josephine said, rolling her eyes for Marsha’s benefit. “I’ve heard it called a lot of things but never a little tube. Anyway—”
   Marsha rarely interrupted the people who came to see her, but in this case, the girl in question wasn’t getting a word in. “Perhaps it would be better if the patient told me her story in her own words.”
   “What do you mean, her words?” Josephine asked, her brow furrowing in confusion.
   “Exactly what I said,” Marsha said. “I think the patient should tell the story, or at least participate.”
   Josephine laughed heartily, then got herself under control. “Sorry, it struck a funny bone. Judith is fine. She’s even gotten a little more responsible now that she’s a mother. It’s the kid who’s messed up. He’s the patient.”
   “Oh, of course,” said Marsha, somewhat baffled. She’d treated children before, but never so young.
   “The kid is a terror,” Josephine went on. “We can’t control him.”
   Marsha had to get her to be more specific. Plenty of parents could call their toddlers terrors. She needed more specific symptoms. “In what way is he a problem?” she asked.
   “Ah!” Josephine intoned. “You name it, he does it. I’m telling you, he’s enough to drive you to drink.” She turned to the child. “Look at the lady, Jason.”
   But Jason was absorbed in his magazine.
   “Jason!” Josephine called. She reached across and yanked the magazine out of the infant’s hand and tossed it on Marsha’s desk. It was then that Marsha noticed it was the latest issue of the Journal of Cell Biology.
   “The kid can already read better than his mother. Now he’s asking for a chemistry set.”
   Marsha felt a jolt of fear as it grabbed her by the throat. Slowly she raised her eyes.
   “Frankly, I’m afraid to get the kid a chemistry set at age one and a half,” Josephine continued. “It ain’t normal. He’ll probably blow the whole house up.”
   Marsha looked at the boy in Judith’s lap. The child returned her stare with his own piercing, ice-blue eyes. There was an air of intelligence about him that far outstripped his cherubic baby face. Marsha was taken back in time. This boy was the spitting image of VJ at the same age.
   Marsha knew instantly what was before her: the final zygote. The one VJ said he’d wasted on the implantation study. A child created from her own sixth ovum.
   Marsha couldn’t move. A small cry escaped her as she realized the chilling truth: the nightmare wasn’t over.
   Josephine got to her feet and stepped over to Marsha. “Dr. Frank?” she asked with some alarm. “Are you all right?”
   “I . . . I’m fine,” Marsha said feebly. “I’m sorry. Really, I’m okay.” She couldn’t take her eyes off the child.
   “So like I was saying,” continued Josephine, “this kid’s beyond all of us. Why, just the other day—”
   Marsha cut her off. Doing her best to keep a quiver out of her voice, she said, “Mrs. Steinburger, we’ll have to set up an appointment for Jason himself. I really think it would be best if I saw him privately. But it has to be another day.”
   “Well, whatever,” sighed Josephine. “You’re the doctor. You’re the one to know. I suppose we can wait a few days. I just hope you can help us.”
   Once they had gone, Marsha closed the door behind them and leaned heavily against it. She sighed and said aloud, “I hope so too.”
   She knew she had to do something about this child, this prodigy whose villainy might match or even surpass her son’s. But what to do?
   She picked up the phone to call Joe Arnold to say she was running a little late. Just hearing his voice on the line helped calm her down.
   “Well, I’m glad you’re not trying to cancel on me, ’cause I’m not letting you off the hook.” He laughed warmly. “I thought we might eat in tonight. Can’t leave a dog alone his first night home. I hope you’re up to braving my cooking. I make a mean chili. I’m working on it right now.”
   Marsha hoped she was up to braving quite a lot of things, starting with the truth. And of the people she felt closest to—Valerie, Joe, Jean—Joe might be the one to confide in, the one she could count on the most. “Chili sounds great,” she told him. “And I’d just as soon eat in.” It was on the tip of her tongue to tell him about Jason, but it would keep. She didn’t want to say anything over the phone.
   “Terrific. I was beginning to think I’d have to sign up as a patient to get to see you alone. Meet you at the pet shop at seven? I think they’re open until eight.”
   “Seven will be fine. And, Joe . . . thanks.”
   She hung up the phone and got her coat.
   Marsha drove to the mall, feeling better already just knowing she’d soon be telling someone the true story behind Victor’s and VJ’s deaths. She’d bottled the whole thing up for so long. It would be a relief to finally get it off her chest. She felt all the luckier for having Joe to talk to. Ever since he’d come into her life, he’d been a real godsend.
   She drove into the mall parking lot and picked a spot near the entrance closest to the pet shop and turned the engine off. Gripping the steering wheel, she broke into soft sobs. Somehow, she would have to face this last demon-child, and with Joe’s help, end forever the nightmare her husband had begun.