Thin gloves, clean and black, did what they did best, picking a simple lock and breaking into a room. The room rocked so lightly from side to side that Eddie, his head shrouded in the usual black pullover hood, barely noticed; it was an equipment room down in the engineering deck of a massive cargo ship. No one else was in the room. Few were onboard at all, in fact. Since the ship had docked two days ago, all but three or four crew members had spent most of their time along the Venezuelan coast or in the capital city, Caracas, a few miles inland.
Eddie's father was on this ship…maybe. It had taken Eddie six weeks to track him down. Dr. Lerwick's sole mistake had been Dr. Effin Wilson, whom Eddie had recognized on Agent Nyler's computer back in Seattle. Except for the presence of Dr. Wilson, Eddie's father had remained perfectly hidden. Eddie hoped that one mistake would be enough.
Dr. Wilson, Nyler had found, had lived in Norway since assisting with Zach's birth, quietly continuing his own research into reproductive medicine. Other than a few short trips back to the States for speaking engagements, Dr. Wilson had remained in Europe all these years—until this visit to Venezuela.
For nearly a month, Eddie and Nyler, with the help of the Venezuelan authorities, had searched for both Dr. Wilson and Dr. Lerwick, but without result. They had traced a few leads, but even the most likely of those had petered out before long. As usual, Eddie's father had been thorough in setting up false trails.
But Dr. Wilson—he had erred. Two weeks ago, he had conducted a financial transaction that had alerted the FBI back home; the man's accounts in the U.S. were being monitored, of course. Nyler's Venezuelan counterpart, a man named Salazar, had tracked the transaction to a bank near the edge of Caracas. Wary of letting Dr. Lerwick discover that they were hunting for him, Nyler had persuaded Officer Salazar to let Eddie investigate alone, with free rein to go wherever he needed.
Eddie had not seen Nyler since that time. Nyler and Salazar had left information and money for him in designated locations now and then, but for the most part, they had stayed in touch by phone. As it turned out, keeping Nyler and the police with him out of sight had been a wise move; for the past week, someone had been trailing Eddie—a man around his own age, Venezuelan, keeping a low profile but appearing just often enough for Eddie to notice. The man had been good, but no expert; Eddie had been able to lose him easily enough when he had needed to move about unobserved.
At the bank, a fistful of Venezuelan bolívares, the local currency, in the right hands had produced a bank official willing to provide an address and phone number for Dr. Wilson. The address had, of course, turned out to be fake. The phone number, however, had been genuine. It seemed that Dr. Wilson liked for the bank to contact him whenever his money came in. The national police had quickly traced the number and fed the location to Eddie, who then located Dr. Wilson in an apartment near La Guaira, a seaport a few miles from Caracas. He had not approached Dr. Wilson, but had patiently watched him from a distance, hoping the man would lead him to his father.
The man had led Eddie to this vessel, making three visits to it since its arrival. Eddie figured his father's secret research lab—he had to have one somewhere—must be on the ship. Very likely his father himself was here, too.
Nyler had arranged for Eddie to receive a tiny, two-way radio that he had tucked under the collar of his shirt before sneaking aboard in the evening's darkness to look around. The agent had insisted that Eddie do no more than verify that Dr. Lerwick was on the ship, then get off as quickly as possible. Two dozen Venezuelan national police officers crouched hidden in a stretch of jungle a few hundred feet away, on the hillside across the highway from the port, waiting for the word to storm the ship. They would have scoured the ship themselves, but Nyler was concerned that if Eddie's father was not on the ship at the moment, their descent upon the vessel might alert him and send him deeper into hiding. As it was, they would get to do the dirty work if Dr. Lerwick was discovered and once Eddie was out of the way. The plan suited Eddie perfectly.
He quickly searched the room. "Nothing in here," he reported. The wire hidden beneath his shirt carried his words to Nyler—hopefully. The tiny radio had a short in it; Nyler could hear him, but he could not hear Nyler, not consistently. If there was any trouble, Eddie just hoped they would receive his call for help and come running.
"I've checked this entire level," he whispered. "I'm going to walk through the crew quarters and check a few rooms. As far as I can tell, everyone who's not up on the bridge at the moment is either onshore or asleep in their bunks."
Leaving the equipment room, Eddie climbed the stairs to the main deck. He had to cut across it to reach the six-story tower that housed the crew and the galley. He crept through the shadows of the great shipping containers that had been loaded onboard by crane early that morning, careful to keep out of sight of the bridge.
The stairway brought him into a narrow corridor with six doors, three on either side. Unfortunately, it was well-lit with flickering fluorescent lights. It's not like I was going to be able to hide in a corridor this short anyway, he admitted. Still, he moved with extra care as he scanned the nameplates posted beside each door—a lounge, a crewman's quarters, another crewman's quarters. He could have opened any of these doors even if they were locked, but he resisted the urge. The last thing he wanted to do was to walk in on a crewman trying to sleep, one who might sound the alarm. So he searched for signs of anything unusual. A nameplate reading "Secret Lab" would suffice.
Moving up to the next level, he located the galley and its adjoining dining room. Across the hall was a small recreation room set up for table tennis, the blue table arranged squarely in the middle. Eddie smirked, imagining sailors playing table tennis on the high seas.
The other four rooms on this level were clearly marked as crew quarters, so Eddie took the stairs to the third level, where more crew quarters took up the space. He ascended to the fourth level and scanned the nameplates there. The first four were still more crew quarters, but the fifth was unmarked—the only unmarked door he had found. Eddie put his ear to the door and listened, but heard nothing.
He whispered into the miniature microphone tucked below his collar. "Fourth floor up from the main deck, there's an unmarked room. I'm going to take a look." He heard only static in response—no reply, not that he had expected any.
His hands sweated inside his gloves, but they did not tremble as he picked the lock before him. In seconds the door swung gently, silently open.
"Good evening, Edward."
Eddie froze. His father sat inside the room, at a desk facing the wall to Eddie's right, working at a laptop computer. He did not look up.
"Come inside," Dr. Lerwick invited in a voice that sounded not surprised, but…disappointed. "These quarters are small, but they will suffice for our purposes this evening."
Eddie swallowed. "You knew I was coming."
"Naturally. Take off the hood." There was disappointment in his father's tone again. "You made several errors."
Eddie pulled his hood off with one hand. "The local guy who was following me—he works for you?"
"Of course. After all I taught you, I thought you would have been less conspicuous."
So the local guy was not as easily fooled as Eddie had thought.
His father turned away from the computer, swiveling on his chair to face Eddie. "Sit down. Please, I insist. We haven't seen each other in nearly a year, son." He gestured to a small couch against the wall to Eddie's left. With his other hand he drew a pistol from inside his jacket. He did not threaten Eddie with it, but he noticed Eddie's eyes fasten on it. "Don't be alarmed. It is merely a precaution in case anyone might have…followed you."
Eddie kept his face flat, emotionless. Could he know about the national police waiting at the edge of the jungle? How long will it take them to get here? He probably needed to keep his father here only a minute or two; once they realized he was in danger, the police would come speedi
ly. They ought to be able to hear every word being said.
Eddie moved inside and shut the door behind him.
"Lock the door, Edward," his father admonished. "You always did forget that little detail. Everything else I taught you, you could remember. But the doors…" He shook his head. "It's a rookie mistake, son. I expect better of you. At least you have not neglected the gloves."
With a deep frown at his thin, black gloves, Eddie locked the door and seated himself on the couch.
"Edward," his father said, stretching out his hands to Eddie, though one hand—black-gloved like its pair, matching Eddie's—still cradled the gun. "Son, you're a long way from home. Why have you come?" The man's tone was casual, but his eyes pierced through Eddie's own, and his fingers twitched on the pistol. That could not be a good sign. His father was nervous.
Eddie hesitated before answering. "I want you to leave Zach and his family alone."
"You came all this way to ask me not to take Zechariah back?" His father grunted. "I think not." He stood and stepped to the small window opposite the door and stared out through it. "It seems to me that you have come for one of two reasons. You have come to avenge the death of Zechariah's father, or you have led the authorities to me."
Eddie gulped. He knew.
"The latter option seems unlikely," his father continued. "Had you turned yourself in, you would have been arrested. That you would avoid at all costs."
Eddie stilled his expression, but writhed inside. I'm not like you, Dad—not anymore. No; for Zach's sake, he had had to reveal himself.
"Besides, had you been arrested, you might have cooperated with the police to help them find me, but they would not have set you free to search for me in Caracas and here aboard this vessel, as you have done. So," his father turned back to him, "you must have come to kill me in revenge. But you appear to be unarmed. Hence my confusion."
Eddie dropped his eyes to the floor to hide a moment's relief; his father did not know about Nyler and the national police. To avenge Zach's father? Eddie smirked. "Craig's alive, Dad. He's fine. You always were a terrible shot."
He peeked up at his father in time to see the man frown. "Not dead? Ah. How fortunate for him. It is of no significance. I will take the child when it suits me."
"And how long will you keep him, Dad?" Eddie challenged, his ire aroused by the thought of Zach kidnapped again someday. "A year? Ten? He's growing up! You won't be able to lock him away inside a house much longer. I'm not sure you could now, now that he's been out—"
"Is this why you came, Edward?" his father cut him off icily. "To scold me?" He returned to his seat, but kept his cold eyes on Eddie. "How did you find me?"
"Zach," Eddie explained. "He said you were planning to take him to Caracas."
Dr. Lerwick furrowed his brows. "And how…? Ah—the phone call. All that time with nannies who spoke Spanish. I should have realized."
Eddie glanced furtively at the door; the police would be here any second. He needed to keep his father distracted, talking, lest the man hear them coming down the hall.
"Dad," he asked, "why did you do it? Why did you buy those embryos? Why risk your career to keep that one alive, that one that was Zach?"
His father gave him an odd look, his head cocked slightly to the right. "Is this the reason you traveled all this way? To ask me why? I thought you, of all people, understood!"
Eddie lifted both hands to rub the back of his neck, discreetly guiding his left thumb to feel the microphone wire beneath his collar. It was still there. If it was working, they should be here any moment…
"I thought so too, Dad, but it doesn't make sense anymore. You could have been the greatest in the world without keeping Zach hidden all those years. You could have—"
His father stopped him with a sharp laugh. "It was illegal, boy! Do you not perceive my dilemma? The embryo was healthy, thriving, but the legal limit arrived—a mere fourteen days! Far too few to accomplish anything of significance. Yet here at my fingertips was an opportunity to change the world! How could I have known he would survive full-term? But by the same token, how could I cut him short, when so much knowledge was to be gained every day that he lived? Every day that passed was itself a momentous advancement in medical science!"
Eddie shook his head. "But you gave up everything! Mom—you let her leave us! You didn't even cry when I told you she was dead!"
"Your mother was a coward, Edward," Eddie's father growled. "She did not deserve my tears. She was both too timid to share my vision and too weak to undo it. I gave her ample opportunity to turn me in, but she could not! No, she ruined herself; she deserves no pity."
"What about me?" Eddie questioned.
"You?" his father replied with eyebrows raised. "You I took under my wing. You I trained. To you I gave an adolescent's dream—your own home away from your parents. I found you a job, though with the skills I taught you, you did not need it."
"You got me a job so I could keep you safe!"
"Which favor I would have repaid richly when my research is complete—and that will not be long now. It is progressing well."
Eddie wasn't sure whether he was still talking to keep his father distracted or to spill out the bitter tensions he had stored up for years while watching Zach grow up all alone. Neither did he care which motive was at work.
He folded his arms across his chest. "I didn't want a job! I didn't want my own apartment! All I wanted was for you to come to my baseball games and cheer for my sake, and not just for me to win so that you would look good!"
Eddie's father scoffed. "Games—how quaint. I taught you the things of men—how to get your way in the world, how to rise above the limits of rules imposed by lesser minds! I taught you to excel beyond your peers, to thrive!"
"You taught me how to break the law and then hide!" Eddie retorted. "I didn't thrive! You made me your slave. You taught me how to hide from the law. Well, I'm not your slave anymore!"
"No. You betrayed me." His father rose to his feet again and began to pace to and fro across the width of his little cabin. His fingers twitched on the gun again. "Why did you turn against me, Edward, after all that we had done for one another?"
"For one another?" Eddie laughed. "It was all for you! What say did I ever get? But I'll tell you why I sent Zach to his parents. I wanted him to have what I never got to have: a father, a family."
"Ah." Dr. Lerwick shook his head sadly. "You fool boy. You forgot our purpose. We were going to give children to families across the world, families that could not—"
"Your purpose, not mine!" Eddie yelled. He no longer cared if his father wielded a gun. "When I set Zach free, I did what you should have done long ago!"
His father gave him a scornful look. "Ever the good thief working to rescue the weak. After all these years, still the boyish aspiration to be the noble Robin Hood! You are so like your mother—all heart and no vision! What a shame."
Eddie's throat tightened to match his face. "She was tormented, living with you, hating how you hid Zach away! You killed her—you and your relentless quest to be the best in the world!"
His father's voice went cold. "I am the best in the world! I am! No one can do what I have already done, and will do again." His eyes shone with a frigid light. "You fail to understand, Edward, what makes a life significant. Discovery, information—these are the things for which the masses praise you when you are gone. Newton, Einstein, Lerwick—it was to stand with men of such renown that I acquired the embryo that became Zechariah, and all the others. It was for the sake of the world that I kept him hidden."
"It was for your own ego."
Eddie blinked as his father smiled in a self-satisfied way. "Indeed. For my own ego. To accelerate my rise from a drug-infested home in the slums of Los Angeles to the pinnacle of scientific achievement. But it also," he gestured to the little room, "just happened to serve the good of
humanity. I have accomplished what no one before me has ever accomplished and few have even dreamed of. I can initiate and sustain life apart from the mother! Do you understand what that means? I hold the power to give life where no one but God himself can give it! I have produced the greatest medical discovery of our time! Once it becomes known—"
"Once it's known," Eddie interrupted, "you'll live the rest of your life in prison! It's a fool's quest, Dad! You can never reap the benefits of your research! You've taken it too far! If you'd gone slower, obeyed the law, worked with other researchers—"
His father barked a laugh. "Foolish child! Do you, of all people, underestimate my preparations? Do you forget how meticulous I have been, spending years to ready myself for this day? By no means will I reveal myself, not at first! I will disseminate my findings through my investors. They will gain the income, fulfilling my obligations to them, but it is inevitable that in time, their 'discoveries' will be traced back to me! By then dozens, hundreds, thousands of people will owe me the lives of their children, and as those children grow up their parents will sing my praises! The masses will plead with me, the giver of life, to come out of hiding and advance this new technology for the good of the entire human race!"
Eddie leaned back against the couch cushions, making no effort to hide his incredulity. "If it's all such a sure thing, Dad, why do you need Zach?"
"Ah," his father sighed with satisfaction. "He is my trophy, my showpiece, my first. A few more investors, and I will have all the funding I need to complete my current research and produce a reliable artificial womb that can be replicated around the globe."
"And then you'll leave the kid alone?"
His father smiled smugly. "On the contrary. At the proper time, I will reveal him to the world. He will always be useful to me—the symbol of my power, the evidence of my supreme accomplishment, my miracle…"
Voices called to one another from the ship's main deck below. Eddie's father strolled back to the window and peered out, unconcerned. Eddie began to sweat. Those aren't the police. If they hadn't come by now… It must be the crew returning to the ship!
The vessel pulsed suddenly and began to vibrate. A low hum joined the vibration.
"Why are they starting the engines?" Eddie asked, his voice tense.
"They are preparing to leave the port," his father responded calmly. "I arranged for them to depart immediately upon your arrival."
"But there's hardly anyone on the ship!"
"Those who are necessary have returned. They were merely awaiting my signal."
His signal. Eddie's eyes flashed to the computer. Just when he had thought he had outwitted his father, the man had set him up. Now he was caught here on a ship preparing to depart. He slid himself slowly to the edge of the couch.
"Just lean back, Edward," his father ordered, his voice pleasant but his hand wagging the pistol at Eddie.
"Are you going to shoot me, Dad?" Eddie asked bluntly.
"No." Eddie's father moved to the door and opened it. Two large men waiting in the hall stepped into the room; each of them held an automatic rifle in his thick hands.
Eddie looked from them to his father. "Too weak to do it yourself, huh?"
His father smiled. "Like you said, I have poor aim. Do not be dismayed; I have requested that they not kill you. They assure me that they know of a suitably unpopulated island along their route where your betrayal will no longer be a threat to me."
He turned nonchalantly and gathered his things—the computer, a few papers, the briefcase in which he deposited them. Facing Eddie again, he nodded once. "I fear I must leave you in the care of these men."
"You're leaving the ship? But your lab—"
"Was never on this ship, son. What a ridiculous thought, all that amniotic fluid sloshing around. Hmph. A pity that you did not permit me to hone your skills to perfection." He hesitated, regarding Eddie. "Betrayal—it's such a…bitter thing…"
With that, he left the room, and the two large men lifted Eddie by the armpits and dragged him away.
*****
The Boy Who Appeared from the Rain Page 132