“Now what?” Sue asked.
“We wait here until we think we’re in the clear, and then Ricardo gets us to a safe place until he flies us out in the morning,” Jorge said. “That was pretty much the plan anyway.”
The room was small and crowded, with office and cleaning supplies and scuba gear. We had to stand shoulder to shoulder.
Within a few minutes we heard the front door open and Ricardo say, “How can I help you?”
“You charter planes?” a baritone voice asked.
“We have two single-prop island-hoppers and a jet for longer distances.” Ricardo had a similar accent to Jorge’s. “Unfortunately, they’re all booked for the next few days.”
“Could they have been booked by two Americans, a short woman, a Colombian, and a Russian?” Baritone asked.
“That sounds like the beginning of a joke,” Ricardo said.
“No joke.”
“No. My planes are reserved for a pop star, businessmen, and a couple politicians. That could be the beginning of a joke.”
“Uh-huh.”
There was silence for what seemed to be a minute.
“Mind if we look around?” asked Baritone.
“No.”
“No, you don’t mind that we look around?” a third male voice said.
“No, you can’t look around,” Ricardo said. “Why would you need to? There’s nothing here. Do you think the planes are parked out back?”
Another moment of silence.
“Do you want me to book you a charter later in the week?” Ricardo asked.
“No, thanks,” Baritone said.
We heard the door open and close.
INTERLOGUE 8
Hendrick V wiped his face as he walked into the lab, partly from perspiration and partly from skirting the downpour outside. Drying his wet hands against his white lab coat, he continued past equipment, stations, and scientists until he saw Dr. Daniel Smith sitting on a stool reading a printout.
“Dr. Smith, what are the results?” Hendrick’s well-spoken English had a heavy German accent.
Dr. Smith looked up and pushed his wire-framed glasses higher on his nose with his right index finger. “Still not enough reaction.” He dug into his lab-coat pocket and produced a pen. He placed the long paper perforated at the folds on the stainless-steel counter and pointed at numbers.
Hendrick bent forward to read the results. “Why are they still not reacting?”
“The adjustments in composition and dosage were promising on the rats but not on the human subjects.” Dr. Smith scratched his temple below graying blond hair.
Hendrick moved his stubby finger up the page and then folded it over. He kept tracing until he reached a specific formula result. “These numbers are close with the life-extending drug. We could almost be there.” He went to another printout on the table. “Your adjusted theory makes sense. So why, then, do your alterations to this life-saving formula not rid the cancer?”
“That’s the question we keep coming to.” Dr. Smith tapped the pen on his front tooth and thought.
Hendrick turned his attention to the white board that had writing in blue marker that only a scientist would understand. He studied it again. “The life-extending drug is based on the current immune-suppressive principles. The cure is based on immune-enhancing principles.”
“What if …” Dr. Smith swiveled on his chair. “The problem could be that the test subjects we are using for the cure have genetically engineered food and pesticide contamination.”
Hendrick stared at Dr. Smith as what he had just said registered. “Fuck!” He picked up a blue marker and flung it as hard as he could across the room, narrowly missing an assistant. “Tell the missionaries we need a fresh batch of homeless. And not more deformed ones, they’re hard to look at. Scheisse. Why didn’t you think of that before—like years ago?”
Dr. Smith glanced at the printout and then at Hendrick. “It just came to me, and it makes sense.”
“Years my father was trying to make the cure, only to be sabotaged by his own designs.”
Dr. Smith cleared his throat. “Actually, he never wanted a cure; I did. I thought we’d found it too. But after what I thought was the initial breakthrough something always wasn’t quite right. This makes sense. The genetic engineering and or the glyphosate could be altering genes in more ways than we know.”
“Really.” Hendrick looked for something else to throw. He was sure people in the lab were hiding throwable objects from him so he’d stop breaking things. Maybe he should punch Dr. Smith for disrespecting his late father. He took a deep breath. “Now we have to retest everything for different parameters. It’s going to take so much more time.”
“First, we must confirm that the contamination is the problem with new test subjects, starting from the beginning …” Dr. Smith did a calculation with his pen on the printout. “If everything goes well … hmm.”
“Fuck!” Hendrick didn’t wait for Dr. Smith’s answer. He knew any further delays were bad. “We’re already behind a year as it is.”
“We’ve exhausted pretty much everything else.” Dr. Smith shrugged. “We have no other choice.”
“Scheisse! Get back to work.”
The other technicians, scientists, and assistants avoided Hendrick as he walked through the lab. Slamming the door behind him, he continued down the hall to his office.
Otto, chief of security, looked out the window. His tall, slim form was straight, his long arms at his sides.
“Why is it so hot in here?” Hendrick went to the thermostat next to the door. “The lab was cool. Why isn’t the air conditioning working in my office? This place was built by idiots.”
Otto didn’t turn around, instead adjusting his round glasses. “We have a visitor who is now peeking into all the goings on.”
“Who?” Hendrick walked to Otto’s side to gaze out the window.
It had stopped raining. Tom Crane was standing next to rows of test corn. The stalks were only two feet high. For some unknown reason, after the Plycite gene was spliced into the DNA of the corn, as it grew it was dwarfed and unable to reach maturity.
“What’s he doing here?” Hendrick banged on the window.
“He arrived about an hour ago,” Otto said.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Hendrick slid open the window and yelled through the screen. “Tom! This way, come here!”
Tom waved and walked from the test plot to a near door of the prefab building.
“Make sure, for however long he’s here, Tom has an escort and is not allowed to see any sensitive areas,” Hendrick said as he went over to the computer on his desk. “Hopefully he’ll only be here for five minutes.”
“I don’t know why he doesn’t have an escort already. He should’ve been assigned one at the gate.” Otto was stern. “I will have to do it myself.”
“Well, hello there.” Tom entered the office. He wore a teal button-down, short-sleeved shirt, sans his trademark bowtie, tan cargo shorts, and brown socks and sandals.
“Tom, how are you?” Hendrick motioned for him to sit down on a metal chair at the opposite side of the desk. “I don’t remember inviting you here.”
“I thought I’d come have a look at your operation.” Tom sat. “There seem to be some problems. I told Carlo and Davis. I’m sure they’ve mentioned them to you.”
“I’m too busy to speak with them. Don’t ever communicate challenges to them. Come directly to me.”
“The Africans and Indians are having difficulty growing the soy and corn we gave them.”
More problems. What had he inherited? If he could kill his father again, he would, but he’d make him fix everything first. “What, exactly?”
“The yields of soy are lower than their conventional counterparts, and there is a high degree of dried-out pods, they think due to the climate. They are asking for a variety that grows better in hot weather. The corn ears are smaller than they’re used to, and frankly they say the corn doesn’t taste
very good—it’s dry. Animals don’t even like it.”
“Both the soy and the corn are grown in Texas, and they’re fine,” Hendrick said. “It can’t be that much hotter in India and Africa.”
“In some places, yes,” Tom said. “What about soil composition?”
“Yes, that definitely plays a role.”
Tom pointed to the window. “Is that corn out there the same variety?”
“No, that has the Plycite gene.”
“What’s a Plycite gene?”
Hendrick realized he’d slipped up. “It’s not important.”
Tom gave Hendrick a quizzical look.
Hendrick wasn’t going to explain how the Plycite gene created antibodies that attacked sperm, causing infertility in people, and that the corn was the delivery system—another step in mass population control. “I will send people to India and Africa to look into the issues.”
“What about going back to a previous generation of seed that you know worked?”
“That’s not an option.”
CHAPTER 26
May 19, 2003
Yesterday we’d waited in the charter store for two hours until we were sure the coast was clear before Ricardo drove us to his family’s home to get some sleep.
As I climbed the six retractable stairs to the plane, I had a sudden urge to look back at the hangar we’d walked through. As I stopped and turned I caught a glimpse of a person standing at the outside edge of the oval-shaped building a few hundred yards away. It was Adhira Virk.
Ivan was behind me, so he had to stop. He turned to see what I was looking at.
That made Jorge at the foot of the stairs swivel around as well. “We’re not leaving unnoticed.”
“Too late now.” I proceeded into the cabin.
Once we were all seated in the comfortable caramel chairs of the well-appointed jet, I asked Jorge, who was the only one still standing, “Is there any way Virk could find out where we’re heading?”
“I’ll see what I can do.” He went to the accordion doors of the cockpit.
“What?” Sue sat in front of me.
Mike was across from us and looked out the window. “That bitch from the restaurant yesterday is watching us from the edge of the hangar. And look who just came up beside her.”
Sue and I jumped over to the seats on Mike’s side.
“Shit,” Sue said.
The big Naintosa security thug was standing next to Virk. He was writing down what could only be our plane’s call sign. He then turned and walked out of sight. “That guy and his partner are literally only one step short of catching us.”
Jorge came out from the cockpit.
Sue pointed out the window. “Did you see …”
“Yes,” Jorge said. “Ricardo has tricks to throw them off our scent.”
The weather was good, and it took just over three hours to touchdown in Bogota, Colombia.
I had researched Bogota on the Internet when I was under house arrest. It was situated in a huge valley on a high plateau, 8,700 feet above sea level. With six and a half million inhabitants, Colombia’s capital had been founded by the Spanish in 1538.
I was looking forward to seeing the country, even under the circumstances. It wasn’t so dangerous now, because the Farc guerrillas weren’t as active as they’d been in the past, and there wasn’t the drug bedlam of the Pablo Escobar era. However, I couldn’t deny that I was nervous about the danger we’d face in the jungle, getting close to the Naintosa/Pharmalin lab. First, we had to get to Florencia without being caught by the Naintosa thugs.
Walking from the plane to the terminal, the smell was unique—a mixture of dust, jet fuel, and something sweet I couldn’t recognize. I felt like I’d just chain-smoked a pack of cigarettes and couldn’t catch my breath. Jorge had warned us that at that altitude we might experience some breathing difficulties until our bodies became accustomed to it. Puffy white and gray clouds were dispersed in the brownish-blue sky. The temperature was comfortable—I’d read that it averaged sixty-five degrees Fahrenheit year round—it seemed right on that number. You’d think that being so close to the equator that it would be hot, but because Bogota was so high up, it remained cool.
Our new passports worked well, and we had no trouble clearing customs.
As we walked through the terminal, I said to Jorge, “How much time do you think whatever Ricardo did to throw the thugs off gave us?”
“A couple hours,” Jorge said. “It’ll be hard for them to find us in the city.”
“But they would suspect we would be coming here,” Ivan said.
Jorge nodded. “Yes, they would have eyes and ears here. We must stay vigilant.”
We could see the exit doors in the distance and signs in Spanish pointing toward them. People were going in different directions—a sea of black-colored hair.
“Does it feel good to be home?” Sue asked Jorge.
“Yes.” Jorge took a deep breath. “There’s no place like it on Earth. You’ll see that the people are warm and inviting, the food spectacular, and the scenery …” His accent had thickened.
Jorge stopped walking and looked at all of us. “But you have to keep your wits about you. We must stick together at all times. There are still kidnappings, and gringos like you are thought to be easy prey for the not-so-virtuous of our society. Then there’s the jungle we’re going to, but we’ll deal with that later.” He began to walk again.
As we walked out the exterior terminal doors, we had to maneuver around clumps of people on the sidewalk. On the covered street were tour buses, shorter bright-colored buses, and small yellow well-worn cabs, all in a congested mess. Then among them were passenger vehicles. Thick exhaust fumes in the air mixed with the altitude made it even harder to breathe.
Jorge led us to a car rental agency where we picked up a navy-blue Hyundai Santa Fe.
Jorge drove, Ivan was in the passenger seat, and Sue sat between Mike and me in the back.
Driving in Colombia was like driving in France but even more chaotic. There were no lines on the roads for the most part, and where there were, no one paid attention to them. Cars and buses weaved everywhere. The multitude of little yellow cabs seemed especially pushy. And then there were motorcycles riding along the shoulders. The only saving grace was that traffic wasn’t moving fast. When we stopped at a red light, motorcycles moved around and in-between the cars to get to the front of the line.
“Como cucarachas; motorcyclists are like cockroaches.” Jorge glanced at me through the rear-view mirror and must’ve noticed that I was shaking my head at the commotion of motorists. “It’s lucky that most cars and motorcycles here don’t have as much power and are smaller; otherwise everyone would kill themselves.”
He was right, the Santa Fe we were in was the biggest vehicle I could see except for buses, and it was considered midsize in the States.
“Colombians are generally nice until they get behind the wheel,” Jorge added.
We all watched to see if anyone was following us, but in the congestion, no one could tell.
Along the sides of the road were all sorts of businesses from auto repair shops, to electronics and clothing stores to supermarkets, from newer concrete buildings, to dilapidated brick-and-tin structures that had precarious electrical wiring hanging off the side. Behind them were blocks and blocks of high-rise concrete-and-brick apartment buildings.
Jorge swerved around a pothole but wasn’t fast enough to miss the second one that made our vehicle shudder and vibrate.
“They could use some roadwork,” Mike said.
“I remember some of these potholes from last time I was here, and they are twice as big now,” Jorge commented. “If there wasn’t so much government corruption, there’d be money for many improvements, not only the roads.”
I noticed a hole that someone had thrown a bunch of rocks into to lessen its severity.
Ivan was looking to the left. “Those buses are interesting.”
There were long, red
double buses in the median between the lanes of traffic, traveling at higher speeds. Every mile or so there was a station and overhead walkways for people to safely get to them.
“That’s the main transit system,” Jorge replied. “There isn’t enough money to build a proper metro, even though the government keeps talking about it. Again, maybe if they weren’t so busy lining their own pockets …”
A few miles later we turned left off the major thoroughfare and came into a quieter area that had brick façade structures and thick leafy trees along the sides. There were high-rises among two and three-story older buildings that had more architectural character.
Even with lighter traffic, we still hadn’t noticed any suspicious vehicles following us.
“This is the North Side where it’s quieter and safer.” Jorge turned the steering wheel to the right at the end of a block. “It’s the richest area, and many people speak English. I think it’s the best place to stay.”
“You aren’t going to take us to stay with your parents?” Mike said. “I heard it’s an insult to come home and not stay with family here.”
“My parents are old and live in Ibague, which is three hours from here. I’m not sure what they’d think of the likes of you. They’d definitely be out of cervezas right after you arrived.”
Mike licked his lips. “A cerveza sounds good about now.”
Jorge hadn’t mentioned his daughter to Mike, so I didn’t want to say anything. Also, Jorge hadn’t said anything to any of us about the mother of his daughter.
We pulled up beside a nine-story building with a lighter brick façade that looked as if it had been sandblasted to appear dated and classy; the Embassy Suites by Hilton Bogota–Rosales.
“Rosales is the part of town we are in, just in case you ever need to know.” Jorge opened his door. “Let’s grab our luggage and check in.”
Glass doors led into a brick archway. A set of stairs brought us into an atrium where each floor’s hallways and room doors could be seen above.
Jorge strode over to the front desk to talk to the young lady in a navy-blue suit.
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