by Neil Mcmahon
Still, Joaquin’s words reverberated: Lot of coincidence.
“I’ll have replacements sent down for any patients still here, Ollie,” Monks said. “If there’s anything else, let me know.”
Outside in the hall, Joaquin said dolefully, “This isn’t gonna make me look good. What do we do, sue the fire department?”
It was not going to make the hospital look good either. But the damage was not as bad as it had first appeared. With the ER’s fast turnover, most of its patients had already checked out. Any samples that remained necessary, along with the main hospital’s samples that had been dragged off the racks too, could be redrawn without causing much flap.
“Take it easy, Joaquin,” Monks said. “Nobody could have seen this coming. Chances are it will just go away.”
Monks trudged back upstairs, grateful that his shift was almost over. He went to the main desk and explained the situation to Leah Horvitz. The ER’s admission list for the past hours would have to be compared with the lab’s inventory and necessary samples retaken. He was not surprised to notice that Stephanie was hovering nearby, listening.
She cornered him immediately afterward, her eyes afire.
“That’s it,” she said.
“What’s it?”
“They can’t afford to have it known that Lex Rittenour’s an addict, especially with that big IPO coming up. So they trashed all the blood samples from the ER. It wasn’t any accident, they knew what they were looking for.”
“Whoa, whoa,” Monks said. “Who’s ‘they’?”
“Aesir Corporation. His company.”
“I’m still not following you, honey.”
“The paternity suit,” she said, with the patience of speaking to someone very slow. “His DNA signature’s a matter of record.”
Monks finally got it. Establishing that John Smith was really Lex Rittenour would be very difficult. But if a sample of John Smith’s blood from tonight had been subjected to DNA analysis and matched the known signature from Lex Rittenour’s paternity suit—that would constitute positive identification.
“You’re suggesting the company staged a raid?” Monks said incredulously. “In that short a time? They’d have to operate like the CIA.”
“Are you kidding? They’re huge, worldwide. They have floors of offices in the Bank of America Building. Dad, where’ve you been?”
Monks tried to dismiss the idea: It was an absurd amount of trouble, not to mention highly illegal, for insurance against something that was unlikely anyway.
On the other hand, having a megacorporation’s presiding genius identified as an addict would be infinitely bigger trouble—especially with a billion-plus dollars at stake within the next days. Money was no object to a company like Aesir. Certainly, they had their own highly trained security, and it was not too much of a stretch to assume they were capable of commando-type activities.
Offices in the Bank of America building, where Ronald Tygard also happened to be based. The BOA was a big building, but it was still another notable coincidence.
“You have to call them on it,” Stephanie declared.
“Why?”
“They set fire to the hospital. You can’t just let it go.”
“On the contrary, Stephanie, that’s an excellent reason to let it go. Christ knows what else they’d be willing to do.” He was only half-joking.
“Come on. This is fascinating. Aren’t you curious?”
Curiosity did not play a large part in Monks’s life when he was trying to stay on top of an ER with several patients inside, a bunch more waiting, paramedics in the field, and the chance of a serious crisis at any moment.
Although it was true that that was over for the next few days.
“Okay,” Stephanie said, with the air of releasing a pent-up confession. “She’s fascinating. Dr. Rostanov. I wish I could get to know her.”
Monks’s perplexity deepened, but he grasped dimly that this went along with losing the child she had been. She was turning into the adult she was going to be, but was not yet sure who that was; casting about, eager and a little scared, looking for people who would define her.
“You think so too,” she said. “Admit it.”
“Stephanie, I can’t imagine that Dr. Rostanov was involved in the fire or the theft. And if I went walking in to see her, waving a couple of felonies, it wouldn’t exactly warm the air.”
“What have you got to lose?”
Monks drew himself upright. “I’m glad I stand so high in your estimation.”
“I’m sorry, Dad, I didn’t mean it like that. You could just go talk to her.” She raised her palms in exasperation and left again, this time for good.
Monks was left standing alone, feeling a little sorry for himself: unjustly condemned. He had not seen fit to point out that Martine Rostanov, with the high-powered company she kept, was not likely to be very interested in a curmudgeonly fiftyish ER doc, or his no-matter-how-bright-and-charming student daughter, in return. Not to mention the fact that he had annoyed her by demanding her licenses.
But there had been that moment of near-intimacy. I know who you are.
It was also true that the hospital would investigate the matter, internally and maybe officially as well. For Monks to bring these suspicions to light could have huge consequences. The more information, the better.
Then there was the point that Stephanie had made: He had nothing to lose.
Monks went on into the ER to close out his shift.
4
Martine Rostanov’s licenses identified her as an internist with an address in Burlingame, an affluent area south of San Francisco. They gave no phone number, and there was none listed for her. Monks walked out into the hospital’s parking lot and got into his ‘74 Ford Bronco. He located her street, Mirada Avenue, on a city map. It was toward the west end of Burlingame—just about dead on top of the San Andreas Fault—and this time of night, taking Nineteenth Avenue and Interstate 280, it should be an easy twenty-minute drive.
He sat for a moment longer, feeling like a high-school boy, then started driving south.
Nothing to lose.
Traffic was light. Monks settled into the warm comfort of the old truck, feeling the city around him in a way that was usually lost in tension and haste. San Francisco was one of the world’s most beautiful places, its Mediterranean profile, in clear weather, breathtakingly sharp against the blue Pacific sky. But Monks loved it like it was tonight, softened by the mist, lights blurred, outlines indistinct. The sense was something like a striptease: intimate, mysterious, exciting, not because of what it showed, but what it promised.
He passed the San Francisco State campus, then the last of the stoplights, and accelerated into the concrete-banked valley onto 280. His mind turned to what Stephanie had been talking about: a genetics breakthrough which not only involved huge sums of money, but which epitomized the influence on human life that this new science was certain to have.
When Monks had been in school, the science of modern genetics was just beginning its explosion. The discovery it rested on—the double helix structure of the DNA molecule—had taken place only in 1953. Since then, knowledge had been amassed with bewildering speed; it was impossible for him to keep up with it in any kind of detail. But the scheme that had taken shape in his mind—very rough, vastly oversimplified, and with many exceptions—went like this:
Every cell in the human body (about one hundred trillion) contained a genetic component that was something like a city, tiny but very densely populated. All of these cities were almost identical. All had the same number of streets (chromosomes), twenty-three pairs, with one member of each pair coming from the mother and one from the father. If the last street at the outskirts of town dead-ended part way (the Y chromosome), you were male instead of female.
The streets were divided into blocks (genes); there were somewhere upward of 25,000 of these. Each block had thousands of houses. As in some 1950s-style subdivisions, the houses were available in o
nly four models, A,C,G, and T (for adenine, cytosine, guanine, and thymine). They were arranged in three-unit complexes—about a billion of these per city. Together, they created the building blocks (proteins) which made for the actual construction of flesh and bone.
All humans were 99.9 percent alike genetically (bad news for racial supremacists). The layout, size, and shape of the streets, blocks, and even the arrangement of houses, were just about the same. Moreover, there was not any extra or fundamentally different genetic material that caused humanity’s huge variety of characteristics. This came from the statistically slight, but still almost infinite, variations in order.
For years, scientists steadily had been filling in the city map, locating the blocks and even specific houses. Very recently, in what some considered the greatest scientific breakthrough in history, the map had been essentially drawn. The next step was staggering in its complexity: figuring out what the individual houses did. Each gene might have many functions; it often seemed to work in conjunction with other genes; to be active at different levels in different circumstances; and to be influenced by a host of other factors, many yet unknown.
But there was no doubt that gene decoding was the key to the future health of the human race. Some genes that caused malfunctions—disease and birth defects—had already been identified; finding more, and learning how to control them, was being worked on feverishly. Entire new fields of medicine were burgeoning, and every part of the puzzle that was filled in might yield concrete results, tangible help for the suffering of real human beings. That was the dream.
It was also the dream of big business around the world. The potential for profit was almost unimaginable.
And now a new player had appeared on the scene, promising a quantum leap in making it come true: a hero, arisen to battle the raider cells that sailed through the bloodstream, ravaging peaceful organ communities.
This was Lex Rittenour’s brainchild: REGIS, the Rittenour Gene Identification System.
Tests to identify some genes which caused defects or disease already existed. But this technology was limited, there were comparatively few such tests, and they were like arrows that had to be shot at specific targets.
REGIS was a software program developed by combining biochip technology, laser scanning, and computer analysis to yield a sweeping genetic test, shooting a barrage of arrows at numerous targets. In theory, this would allow quick identification of many troublesome genes all at once. Eventually, a single blood scan would lay out an individual’s potential to develop disease or pass on damaging genes. Those conditions could then be treated or avoided.
But the downside of the dream was the fear that REGIS would be used to label and even create genetic superiority—and its opposite. It was further inflamed by the fact that the name REGIS suggested a Latin cognate for royalty.
And it had not gone unnoticed that the computer giant corporation backing REGIS was called Aesir: the name for the pantheon of Norse gods, with its mighty figures like the warriors Odin and Thor, who guided the Vikings on their raids, and Freya, the goddess of love, who rode with the armorclad Valkyries to carry dying heroes to Valhalla, there to brawl and carouse until the day of doom.
Aesir, the gods, creating REGIS, the king. All taken together, Monks thought, it did suggest that ordinary human beings did not loom very large on that particular map.
He drove on, with John Smith’s words resonating in his head: I’m Frankenstein, man. I created a monster. A perfect monster. Worst kind. Now I want to lock it up, but it’s gotten huge.
Monks was starting to wonder if that monster’s name was REGIS.
Monks took the Trousdale exit off the freeway and found his way to an older section of Burlingame, a sheltered enclave of grandiose mansions with extensive grounds, hidden behind high hedges. He turned in at 2735 Mirada. The house was stone, with tiled roof and ivied walls, definitely in the seven-figure range.
Not bad for an internist.
There were lights on downstairs. The single car in the drive was the silver Volvo he had seen her leave the hospital in, two hours earlier. He climbed the steps to the porch. The old beveled-glass panes in the door gave him a glimpse into an entry hall that opened into a spacious, high-ceilinged living room.
Monks rang the bell, not sure what to expect. He had noticed that she had not worn a wedding ring. But he remembered the gray-haired man in the limousine, the casual ownership that had seemed implicit in his touch on her wrist.
Martine Rostanov came into sight a moment later, walking cautiously with her slight limp, and switched on the porch light. Monks thought he saw a small shiver when she recognized him, like shock at an abrupt and intrusive reality.
But she opened the door quickly and said, “Well, hello,” in a way that seemed shyly welcoming.
“I’m sorry to disturb you,” he said. “I would have called, but I don’t have the number.”
“It’s been a disturbing night. You’re the first one to apologize.” She stepped back, holding the door open, a gesture inviting him in.
“I should probably tell you why I’m here,” he said, not yet moving. “There was an incident at the hospital after you left. Another incident, I should say. A fire, then the lab was sacked, by firemen who seem to be phonies. They destroyed or stole dozens of blood samples.”
Her face became troubled. It deepened the darkness under her eyes that makeup did not quite conceal.
“That’s terrible,” she said. “Why in the world would someone do it?”
“The samples included all of John Smith’s. With your people so bent on protecting his identity, we suspect those were the target. To prevent possible DNA identification of John.”
She said, “Oh,” a quiet exhalation that combined shock, disappointment, and weariness. She turned back inside, leaving the door open. Monks followed her, feeling a little guilty for not pointing out that “we” consisted of Stephanie and himself.
The living room was old plaster, painted a color between brindle and peach. The woodwork was Victorian-style, clear fir stained a deep mahogany. The result was a subdued glow. The furniture matched: early American chairs and pine sideboard, oak coffee table, an old couch of deep burgundy pile, all unobtrusively elegant.
Martine moved to a window, rubbing her bare upper arms as if she were cold. “So? What can I do for you?”
“I’m not sure what’s going to happen with this,” Monks said. “The hospital administration may or may not want to press an investigation. I have to decide whether to tell them what I think, or withhold it. I thought talking to you might help me make that decision.”
“Ah, yes. You’re an investigator, aren’t you?” she said, perhaps with a trace of sarcasm.
“In a minor league. If this does turn official, you’re going to be dealing with people a lot tougher than me.”
“Well, what does the hospital have to press?”
“I don’t know yet,” Monks said. The fireman’s words that Stephanie had heard—This is it—did not amount to much, and he did not want to bring his daughter into it. “Some kind of physical evidence may turn up, or an eyewitness. But—with John Smith’s resemblance to Lex Rittenour, I’m sure all this would be interesting to the media.”
Her hands stopped moving on her arms. “That resemblance is nothing but your guess,” she said coolly. “And making it public in a damaging way would be libelous.”
“It might not gain the hospital anything tangible. But our chief administrator’s an ex-marine who likes to even scores.”
“Why come to me? Why didn’t you call Ron Tygard? He’s the lawyer.”
“Mr. Tygard and I didn’t get along,” Monks said. “Quite frankly, I had my fill of him in a real short time.”
“You think you and I can do any better?”
Monks hesitated, then said, “My daughter admired you.”
Her face flashed surprise, then amusement—but it was not displeased. “Really.”
“I think she’s at an age where
she’s looking for who she wants to be.”
“I’m afraid I’m not much of a role model.”
“Me either,” Monks said. “But she doesn’t seem to see it that way.”
Martine turned away, gazing out the window. Her reflection in the glass was like a pale shadow.
“You don’t know anything about me,” she said.
“True,” he admitted.
“You must have a lot of faith in your daughter’s judgment.”
“It’s not just hers,” Monks said.
He thought he saw Martine’s eyebrows rise, the same appraising look as when Stephanie had first approached her. For another half minute, neither of them spoke.
Then she turned back, folding her arms, businesslike now.
“All right, Dr. Monks. First off, I don’t know anything about the fire or the rest of it. I don’t have any reason to think anyone at Aesir was involved. But strictly between you and me—” She moved a little closer, with a confiding air. “There are people who think they’re above the law.”
Monks was impressed by the admission. Martine Rostanov seemed to have no hesitations once she made up her mind. “Meaning?”
“Meaning the company would like to head off trouble,” she said. “There are other people there who’d do anything to make it right.”
“You’re in position to speak for them like that?” he said.
“Not officially. But I’m well connected there.”
“What are you, officially?”
“I’m the company’s on-call physician,” she said. “And I take care of occasional delicate problems. Like tonight.”
“Do you know Lex Rittenour?”
“I’ve met him. He doesn’t come down into the trenches much.”
“Was that him tonight?” Monks said. “Aka John Smith?”
She tilted her head, eyes narrowing.
“Lex Rittenour doesn’t have anything to do with this. John Smith is another Aesir executive who happens to look like him.”
“Okay,” Monks said, spreading his hands. “I don’t have any stake in proving it one way or the other. I’ll just remind you that something might turn up to contradict your statement.”