Tahoe Heat

by Todd Borg

  Street thought that it wasn’t a good idea for Lily to hear all of the details, so she took Lily and Spot into Lily’s bedroom to play a game while Ryan, Diamond, and I sat in the dining room.

  “Tell me what happened from the moment you walked out the door,” Diamond said.

  Ryan shook from the memory. His voice wavered.

  “I went to my car, and hit the key fob to open the rear hatch. I never heard anyone approach. Someone pulled the pillowcase over my head. Someone else punched me in the stomach. The blow doubled me over. I couldn’t breathe. They pulled my arms behind me and tied my wrists.”

  “There were two people?”

  “Yeah. Well, it seemed like it. But I didn’t see anyone. There could have been more, for that matter.”

  “What did they say?”

  “Nothing. That was one of the things that made it so terrifying. No one spoke a word until they put me in the tree.”

  “What happened after they grabbed you?”

  “They shoved me into a vehicle and drove away fast.”

  “Did you get a sense of what kind of vehicle?”

  “No. The seat was high up, like a van. I was lying down in the back seat.”

  “When they put you in the vehicle, how many doors did you hear open and shut?”

  Ryan thought.

  “Three, I think. The door on my side after they pushed me in. The door in front of me on the passenger side. Then the driver’s door.”

  “Did they make any stops on their way to Ski Run?”

  “No. They just drove, then stopped, then marched me up the mountain.”

  “When they took you out of the vehicle, did you hear three doors open and shut?”

  Ryan pondered. He looked down at his bandaged wrists, then shut his eyes.

  “I really don’t remember. I could tell we were going up a hill. And when they took me out, it was obvious that we were on a steep slope. I thought they were taking me into the woods to kill me. I kept thinking about Eli and Jeanie.” Ryan was shivering.

  “You want me to get you a sweater or something?” I asked.

  “No. It’s just nerves.” Even though his arms were in slings, he could still air-wash his hands.

  “They say anything when they put you in the tree?” Diamond said.

  “Just a few words. They marched me up the mountain, cut the tie off my wrists and said stuff like, ‘There’s a boulder in front of you. Use your hands to climb up.’ Then, ‘Move your foot. Put it here. You slip off the branch, you’ll die.’ When they got me in position, they tied my wrists behind the tree.”

  “What did their voices sound like?”

  “I think only one guy talked, and he had a high voice. But kind of gruff. If he hadn’t handled me with such strength, I might have thought it was a woman’s voice. Maybe he was trying to talk high. Like a disguise.”

  “Was there anything that happened that indicated how many guys there were?”

  Ryan thought about it, shook his head.

  “So it was probably two guys,” I said, “but it could have been three. Or even one.”

  “But multiple car doors...”

  “A single person could have done that as disguise. Reached over and pushed you from behind or from the side as a misdirection, too.”

  “Yeah, I guess so.”

  Diamond finished making his notes, put his little pad in his pocket.

  “What’s your guess about this?” I said to Ryan.

  Ryan shook his head. “I don’t know. If these guys wanted to kill me, they would have done it, right? So they must be trying to terrorize me.”

  “Can you think of a reason why?”

  “No. Maybe it’s a kind of blackmail. First, they show me what they’re capable of. Then they demand money.”

  Diamond spoke. “You get a money demand, it’ll say don’t call the cops. It’ll mention some threat against you or Lily. But if you do what they say, you’ll just make it worse. You must keep us informed about this. It’s our only chance to get these guys. Do you understand?”

  Ryan looked at him, then me. “Yeah,” he said. “I’ll be sure to let you know.” He turned back to me. “Thanks for taking care of Lily last night.”

  “Certainly.”

  “I don’t know what to do now.”

  “If you’re okay with the expense, I can arrange to hire off-duty deputies on rotation here. You and Lily will be safer with a twenty-four-hour guard outside your house.”

  “Of course,” Ryan said.

  “Diamond?” I said. “Do you have some guys who can do some moonlighting?”

  He nodded. “Yeah, but I don’t know about twenty-four seven.”

  “See what you can pull together. I’ll call Mallory for additional help.”

  I followed Diamond outside, and gave him the hairbrush that Ryan had brought.

  “The hair belongs to Jeanie Samples, the missing woman,” I said. “Do you want to send it to the lab Douglas County uses?”

  “Sure.”

  “Do you have an envelope?”

  Diamond found one in his patrol unit.

  I pulled out my wallet, removed the hair I’d pulled off the corpse, put it into the envelope, and handed it to Diamond.

  “From the body up on the mountain?”

  “Yeah. I didn’t know if you’d taken any off the remains.”

  Diamond shook his head.

  “Then this will save you the trouble of getting some from the coroner.”

  Diamond left, and I went back inside.

  “Thanks for getting the police to come here, but I still feel lost,” Ryan said. “Can I go? Are Lily and I going to be trapped here in the house?”

  “Somewhat,” I said. “Another choice for you is your Bay Area house if you feel safer there.”

  Ryan shook his head. “That’s where the message on the obituary page was left. They know everywhere I go. At least up here, I have you helping.”

  “You could take Lily and go out of town, but that would likely just postpone the process of trying to find out who kidnapped you. My best guess is that we won’t figure this out until the person makes another move. If you leave, that might only delay the person’s actions. So I think the best thing is for you to stay here and send Lily out of town.”

  “Where?”

  “Do you have a relative far away?”

  “No.”

  “A friend?”

  He shook his head. “My only friends are here and in the Bay Area. And with Eli dead and Jeanie missing, the only other possibilities would be too obvious to the kidnapper.”

  “Then I would keep Lily near to you at all times.” I paused, considering what I was getting myself into. “If you like, Spot and I could move in with you for the time being.”

  Ryan’s immediate relief was obvious. “You would? That would be great. I have lots of bedrooms. I would of course pay you whatever you need.”

  “I’ll have to leave from time to time. But I can stay at night. And when I leave during the day, Spot can stay with you. He will be a good guard for Lily.”

  “Is he a trained guard dog? I mean, obviously, he’s huge. But he seems very docile.”

  “He’s always gentle, especially with children. He’s not a professional police dog. But he’s good protection. Are you familiar with dogs?”

  “Not really. I have an acquaintance who has a poodle. It likes me. But I’ve never had a dog. I couldn’t claim to really know dogs.”

  “Then I can tell you that all dogs understand threatening behavior. They don’t have to be trained for that. They have an instinctive desire to protect the people they’ve come to know. So we’ll show Spot your house. We’ll let him explore your bedrooms, get familiar with the scents and sounds. He already understands that the two of you are a unit. Because you are my friends, you are his friends. We can feed him in your garage, take him into your kitchen and give him some of your food treats. After that, he’ll know that this is another home for him. If he hears something ou
t of place, he’ll bark. If the worst should happen, and a stranger tries to come in against your will, Spot will prevent that.”

  “What does that mean? What if someone comes in a window even if Spot’s barking?”

  “He’ll subdue the person and hold him until I tell him to let go.”

  “You mean he’ll bite?”

  “Just enough to put the person on the ground and keep him immobile. If the suspect struggles, Spot will bite harder. If the suspect is passive, Spot will let go, but stay next to him, ready to growl if the suspect moves. If the suspect tries to run, Spot will prevent him from getting away.”

  Ryan lowered his voice. “What if the person has a gun?”

  “What people do is hold out their weapon. Dogs instinctively go for the hand that comes out first. Of course, a determined person with a gun can shoot whatever they want. But if a person breaks in with a gun, I wouldn’t give him real good odds. Dogs don’t care about guns. So the gun doesn’t slow them down or affect their judgment.”

  Ryan nodded.

  “Do you carry a gun?”

  “No, I don’t.”

  “You used to be a cop,” he said.

  “Twenty years. Most of us carry after we quit. But I don’t. I don’t like having that choice available to me.”

  Ryan looked somber even as his eyes twitched.

  I understood that he needed time to process what had happened.

  TEN

  That afternoon, while I was on the phone, Lily’s nanny Hannah reported for work. I saw her from down the hall as she said a few words to Ryan about his arm slings, appearing to show no concern. She then went downstairs to do laundry while Ryan took another nap. Street stayed near Lily, and Lily stayed virtually attached to Spot, her hand around his neck or in his collar. He appeared intoxicated by the attention.

  Come evening, I heard Ryan up and talking to Hannah in the kitchen, sending her out to get groceries.

  After she left, I asked everyone else to stay out of the great room with its undraped windows.

  “You should have motion lights outside,” Street said.

  “Of course,” Ryan said. “That’s obvious now that you say it. I’ll call someone in the morning.”

  Lily dragged Street and Spot down to the walkout basement so that she could show Street a new video game on Ryan’s console. I went down briefly to check the door and windows. Everything looked strong and secure.

  Back upstairs in the dining room, I asked Ryan for more background on his company.

  “Do you think my kidnapping has something to do with my business?”

  “Possibly. There’s a lot of money involved. It’s always smart to see who might benefit financially if you’re severely stressed.”

  “You mean, if I go crazy.”

  “That, or if you merely lose your edge. If your competitors can get your business.”

  “So where do we start?”

  “Tell me more about what CBT does. Before you were kidnapped, you talked about something called hypoxic stress. Start there.”

  Ryan air-washed his hands despite the slings, then laced his fingers together as if to hold them still.

  “It goes back to DNA,” he said. “As you know, DNA is the helical structure of molecules that encode everything about the form and function of an organism. All plants and animals, from bacteria to humans, have DNA.”

  “The difference being the complexity of the sequence,” I said. I could have been a scientist.

  “True,” Ryan said. “But the difference is not as much as you might think. About half of your DNA is shared by a fruit fly.”

  How to win friends and influence people, I thought. “So, you slice and dice a fruit fly’s DNA, and what, make it more like me?”

  Ryan’s look of strained tolerance returned, a healthy sign, I thought, after the ordeal of kidnapping.

  “Or make me more like the fruit fly,” I added.

  He made a little smile, caught himself, took it back. “Let’s just say that by altering a sequence of DNA, we can alter the form and function of the organism.”

  I nodded. “I’ve heard about recombinant DNA a lot, but is this just pure scientific inquiry, or has it actually helped in some area?”

  “Oh, it has been amazing. Uncountable lives have been saved by recombinant technology. For example, insulin for diabetics used to be extracted from animals, and we never had enough. Then scientists figured out how to rearrange the DNA of a certain type of bacteria and basically turned it into an insulin factory. The result is that we feed the bacteria, and it produces all the insulin we need.”

  Ryan spread his arm slings wide. “This is happening all across the spectrum. Recombinant DNA has produced plants that produce dramatically higher yields, plants that are resistant to disease, plants that are resistant to freezing weather, fish that grow faster and larger, specialized bacteria that eat and break down toxic garbage, vaccines that provide immunity against influenza and hepatitis and herpes. One day we will use the technology to actually cure genetic diseases like muscular dystrophy. The list is huge, and the future possibilities are endless.”

  “How does it work? I mean, the actual cut and paste of these molecules? They’re too small for you to get in there with little scalpels and scissors.”

  “Actually, we’re learning to use laser beams for some of those purposes. But in general, the molecules are much too small. We’re talking about objects on a nano-scale. You could put four hundred thousand DNA molecules side by side on the head of a pin. So we use what we call vectors to manipulate DNA in a cell. There are many kinds of vectors. Bacteria and restriction enzymes and viruses.”

  “A virus can cut apart DNA?”

  “Viruses are little micro snippets of wanna-be life that are helpless if they’re just sitting there on the surface of that table. But they are very good at invading a cell, taking over its command structure, and turning it into a virus reproduction machine.”

  “Like pirates taking over a ship and turning it in a new direction.”

  “Exactly. It’s taken many decades and the entire careers of thousands of scientists to develop the techniques. But now it’s quite routine. These vectors are our tools.

  “At CBT our main focus is producing a category of drugs called biologicals. These drugs alter the genetic growth mechanisms of cancer. Ordinary drugs basically try to poison cancer to death, whereas biologicals get into the cancer cells and put on the parking brakes, shift the cancer transmissions into neutral and turn off the cancer engines.”

  “Earlier, you used the word hypoxic. So the reason to do DNA research in Tahoe must have something to do with oxygen levels?”

  “Very good,” Ryan said. “You could have been a scientist.”

  I was right.

  Ryan raised the back of his left hand to his mouth, chewed on the knuckle of his index finger. “As you go up in elevation, the barometric pressure gets less, and what we call the partial pressures of the component gases get proportionally less, too. You know how flatlanders sometimes suffer from high altitude when they go hiking or skiing up in the mountains.”

  My turn for the smile of tolerance.

  “Where I’m going with this is that our bodies are fine with the loss of nitrogen pressure. Same for other gasses. But when oxygen pressure is reduced, less of it crosses the cellular threshold from the air in our lungs to our red blood cells. Our bodies try to accommodate that by producing more red blood cells. Some studies suggest that after you’ve lived in Tahoe for a month, you develop an extra pint of blood volume. The other obvious accommodation is that we move a little slower and we breathe faster.

  “That accommodation works well at altitudes in the Sierra. But at the much higher altitudes of the Andes and the Himalayas, it doesn’t work well. The percentage of oxygen in the atmosphere is still about twenty-one percent, but the partial pressure of the oxygen is too low to help drive it from the air into our red blood cells. What we’ve discovered is that native populations in those hig
h mountains are genetically different from the rest of us.”

  “Sherpas have different genes?” I asked.

  “Yes. Their DNA has evolved for optimal oxygenation of their cells.”

  “How?”

  “I think you’d find the science a bit inscrutable,” he said.

  “Try me.”

  “Well, relative to the hypoxia-inducible factor on one of their genes, we’ve found a dinucleotide repeat polymorphism.”

  “Of course,” I said. “I figured that would be it. So how does this research help your company make biologicals?”

  “It doesn’t. Not yet, anyway. This is pure science. Any resulting future benefit that I might guess at is nothing but speculation and wouldn’t stand up to any rigorous examination. I’d be like a science fiction writer dreaming up possibilities.”

  “But...” I said, sensing the direction of his thought.

  “But science fiction writers have a long history of conjuring up the wildest things, like, say, geo-synchronous satellites, which then are actually developed and revolutionize the world.”

  Ryan continued, “So our notion is that if we can unlock what is happening with this high-altitude adaptation, it may help us develop treatments for people with diseases that make it difficult to breathe and starve their bodies of oxygen. Cystic fibrosis, pneumonia, asthma, emphysema.”

  “Seems like a great idea, doing this research at high altitude.”

  “We’re also trying to learn how natural adaptations occur. So we take primitive organisms and bring them from sea level to high altitude. We’ve already made some interesting discoveries. If we can understand the adaptation mechanisms...” he trailed off, looking at me, but seeing some other world.

  “The nuclear repeating morphological Pollyanna,” I said.

  Ryan grinned. “Yeah, that.” He’d stopped with the hand-wringing, the nervous tics, the glances at the doors and windows. He was a natural scientist, much more comfortable talking about biology and physics than matters of emotion and feeling. The irony was that when he immersed himself in scientific subjects, he became warmer, more human.

  “Anyway,” he said, “this may all come to nothing. Or it may...” Ryan stopped in mid-sentence as a clinking sound permeated the house. My sense was that it came from the direction of the front door. I turned and listened.