by J. D. Robb
“Main helipad, Central. Thanks.”
She was buzzed when she pushed open the door to the roof and the primary helipad. On other towers and flats, the traffic copters or emergency air vehicles were a constant hum and clatter. She hoped to Christ they didn’t shake their way to New Hampshire.
Wind tugged at her hair and sent Peabody’s new ’do into wild waves. “Give me what you’ve got on cloning.”
“I got a lot,” Peabody shouted back. “Organized discs into history, debates, medical theory and procedure—”
“Just give me some basics. I want to know what I’m looking for.”
“Lab work, probably a lot like what you’d see in infertility centers and surrogate facilities. Refrigeration and preservation systems for cells and eggs. Scanning equipment to test for viability. See, when you just bang and breed, the kid gets half its genes from the egg, half from the sperm.”
“I know how banging and breeding work.”
“Yeah, yeah. But see, in clonal reproduction, all the genes come from one person. You have a cell from the subject, and you remove the nucleus and implant it in a fertilized egg that’s had its nucleus removed.”
“Who thinks of this stuff?”
“Wacky scientists. Anyway, then they have to get the egg going. It can be triggered by chemicals or electricity so it develops into an embryo, which, if successful and viable, can be implanted in a female womb.”
“You know, that’s just gross.”
“If you leave out the single-cell bit, it’s not that different from in vitro conception. But the thing is, if the embryo is successfully brought to term, the result is an exact dupe of the subject who donated the original cell nucleus.”
“Where do they keep the women?”
“Sir?”
“Where do they keep the women who get implanted? They can’t all be students. It had to start somewhere. And not all students are clones. You can’t have a bunch of women with Mavis bellies walking around campus. Have to be housing, wouldn’t there? They’d have to monitor them throughout gestation. They’d have to have facilities for labor and delivery, for whatever you call it after the kid comes out.”
“Neonatal. And pediatrics. Yeah, they would.”
“And security, to ensure nobody changes their mind or blabs. Like, ‘Hey, guess what? I gave birth to myself yesterday.’ ”
“That is gross.”
“And data fixers, crunchers, hackers. Techs who have the skill to generate IDs that’ll pass the system checks. That doesn’t even touch on the network for moving clones out of the facility and into the mainstream. And where’s the damn money? Roarke’s got them donating big fat chunks. Where’s the operating money?”
She turned as Feeney and McNab came through the door. Each carried a large EDD field bag.
“Got the works,” Feeney told her. “Any on-site contingency. Warrant come through?”
“Not yet.” Eve looked at the moody sky. It was going to be a nasty ride.
Feeney pulled a bag of cashews out of his pocket, offered them around. “You gotta wonder why, when there’s so many fricking people in the world anyway, some asshole would make a bunch more just because he can.”
Eve bit into a nut and grinned.
“Takes the fun out of it, too.” McNab opted for a square of gum over cashews. “You eliminate the good part right off. There’s no ‘Oh, Harry, look at our beautiful, bouncing baby. Remember that night we both got shit-faced and said to hell with contraception?’ I mean, hey, if you’re going to be wiping some kid’s butt for a couple years, you ought to get the bang at the start.”
“And there’s no sentiment,” Peabody added, and popped a cashew. “None of the ‘Honey, he’s got your eyes, and my chin.’ ”
“And oddly,” Eve added, “your admin’s nose.”
Feeney spewed out cashew crumbs.
They all sobered when Mira came through the door with Reo.
She looked worn, Eve thought. Shadowed and tired. Taking her was probably a mistake, shoving the whole thing in her face.
“My boss, Quincy, your bosses, working on a judge now,” Reo told Eve. “Hope to have it signed and sealed while we’re in transit.”
“Good.” Eve nodded toward the east. “I hope that’s ours.” She shifted, stepped over, and spoke quietly to Mira. “You don’t have to do this.”
“I do. I think I do. Truth isn’t always comfortable, but we have to live with it. I need to know what that truth is. Since I was younger than you are now, Wilfred was a kind of standard for me. His skill and accomplishments, his devotion to healing, to improving lives. He was a friend, and today I’m doing this rather than attending his memorial.”
She looked directly into Eve’s eyes. “And I have to live with it.”
“Okay. But if you need to take a step back, any time, nobody’s going to think less.”
“Stepping back isn’t an option for people like you and me, is it, Eve? We step forward because that’s what we’ve promised to do.” She patted Eve’s arm. “I’ll be fine.”
The copter was big, black, sleek as a panther. It stirred the air—and Eve smelled rain in it—then set down on the pad. It didn’t surprise her to see Roarke at the controls. It barely irritated.
He flashed a smile as she climbed aboard. “Hello, Lieutenant.”
“What a ride!” Louise was already unstrapping from the copilot’s seat to move rear. “I’m inappropriately excited about this whole business.”
“Then sit with McNab,” Eve ordered. “And the two of you can giggle all the way. Just why are you and Louise included in this?”
“Because it’s my copter—and,” he added, “we can give you a rundown on our trip to the center on the way.”
“Something definitely off there,” Louise called up as Feeney and McNab stowed equipment.
“Mmm, plush.” Reo rubbed a hand over the arms of her chair, then shrugged at Eve’s narrowed look. “If she can be inappropriate, so can I. Cher Reo, APA,” she said and offered Louise her hand.
“Louise Dimatto, M.D.”
“Eve Dallas, AK. Ass-kicker. Strap in,” Eve ordered. “Let’s move.”
“Ladies, gentlemen, the air’s a bit rough so you’ll want to keep your seats until it smooths out.” Roarke tapped controls, waited for his screen to show him air clearance. Then he boosted the copter into a straight vertical that had Eve’s stomach rolling over and pitching toward Ninth Avenue.
“Shit, shit, shit.” She muttered it under her breath, then sucked in air and braced. The copter punched forward, slapping her back. The first drops of rain splattered the windshield, and she prayed, sincerely, that she wouldn’t boot her morning bagel.
She heard McNab’s delighted “Yee-haw!” as they streaked, shook, and scooped through the sky. She imagined choking the life out of him to take her mind off what she was doing.
“Peabody, before we get official, let me say your hair is charming.”
“Oh.” She colored a little as she lifted a hand to the new, flippy ends. “Really?”
“Absolutely.” Roarke heard Eve’s low growl beside him. “Avril Icove, as acting CEO, met us in her father-in-law’s office.”
“What?” Eve’s eyes—she didn’t remember squeezing them shut—popped open. “What?”
He’d known that would distract her from her fear and queasiness. “She’s acting CEO, until the board designates a successor, and arranged to meet with us privately. She claims not to be a businesswoman, nor to have any desire to become one. I believed her. She also asked that if I had any plans to buy up a controlling interest in Unilab or the Center, that I give the facility a window of time to recover from the loss of its two main spearheads.”
“She seemed sincere.” Louise leaned forward against her safety straps. “The controlled grief seemed equally sincere. She also, diplomatically, spoke of believing the Center would benefit from someone with Roarke’s skills and vision.”
“You figured she’d be willing to see you tak
e over?”
“I do.” Roarke adjusted for the turbulence. “She has no medical or business training. But I doubt her board would be as amenable, which is why she met us privately. Develop a relationship, a foundation, with the general before the coup.”
“But she needs time so she can get what she needs out of it, or cover it up, or break it down. What the hell does she want?”
“That I can’t tell you, but the COO, a Brookhollow alumni, was very careful about the areas we toured.”
“If you’re taking it at face value, the privacy obsession might not make you blink,” Louise explained. “But if you’re looking for undercurrents, it leads to all manner of questions.”
“Particularly the hidden cameras in exam and procedure areas.”
Eve measured Roarke. “If they were hidden, how do you know they’re there?”
He gave her a look caught between smug and pitying. “Because, Lieutenant, I happened to have a sensor with me.”
“How’d you get it through security?”
“Perhaps because this particular canny device looks like, and reads like, a simple memo book. In any case, every area we toured had them, and they were active during our visit. You’re going to find, at the center, a substantial subsecurity and data sector.”
“Then there was the lab,” Louise put in. “Architecturally interesting, elaborate, superbly equipped. And remarkably inefficient.”
“How?”
Louise explained the setup while rain slapped the windscreen. “You might have different security levels,” she continued. “You might have separate floors or tiers for specific areas of research and testing. You would certainly, on sensitive work, require high clearance. But this setup had no logical flow.”
“Separate clearance required for every ray,” Eve repeated.
“Exactly. And a separate chief, each completely isolated from the other lines.”
“Standard security cams in view,” Roarke added. “An equal number hidden for area scans. And, most interesting, every station fed data into its hub. Not results, but every step, every byte of data.”
Eve thought of the police lab. The chief tech could access any sector, review and/or study any test in progress. But the place was like a hive, a maze of rooms, glass walls. While some sectors required high clearance, most areas connected with the busy bees buzzing not only in their own chambers but in others as well.
“Keep each line focused on its work. Limit or eliminate fraternizing and shop talk. Deny access to all but the top level. Not inefficient if you want to keep dicey stuff wrapped.”
She rolled it around in her head, then peered through the rain. “There’d be room there to close off a sector from the rest. Room for . . . what do you call the having-a-baby area of medicine.”
“Obstetrics,” Louise answered.
“The patient room I saw was like a high-end hotel suite. So maybe you keep your human incubators in-house, in style, segregated from the general population. Peabody, run a list. See what graduates got themselves medical degrees—highlight obstetrics and pediatrics.”
“Warrant’s coming through.” Reo had a small, bulky briefcase unit in her lap. As it started to hum, her face brightened. “We’re good to go.”
“Need to practice, though,” Eve mumbled. “Practice makes perfect. School’s all about practice. Gotta have something going there.”
“Hopefully, we’ll soon see.” Roarke tapped controls. “Starting descent.”
She saw it shimmer out through the damp mists and splattering rain. Red brick and domes and sky walks. Stone walls and denuded trees. The dull blue of a swimming pool covered for the season, the bright green and white of tennis courts. Paths snaked through the gardens and grounds, for scooters, she thought, for walks or bikes or mini-shuttles. She saw horses, and to her shock what she recognized as cows in an outdoor enclosure.
“Cows. Why are there cows?”
“Animal husbandry, I imagine,” Roarke commented.
The term gave her a horror flash of humans marrying bovines. She shook it off.
“Cops. We’ve got cops. Three units, and an ME van. Goddamn it.”
Not state, she decided, trying to get a bead on the vehicles and uniforms as Roarke angled toward the helipad. County, she decided. Probably county. She yanked out her PPC and did a quick search for the local police.
“James Hyer, sheriff. Age fifty-three, born and bred this county. Did four years regular army, right out of school. Had the badge twenty years, current status the last twelve. Married eighteen years, one offspring, male—a Junior—age fifteen.”
She studied his ID image as well as his basic data to try to get a bead on him as well. Fleshy face, ruddy. Maybe liked the outdoors and the local brew. Military haircut, light brown. Eyes light blue, plenty of crow’s-feet. So he didn’t go in for the face treatments, looked his age and maybe a few extra.
She was already yanking off her safety strap as Roarke touched down. She was out, striding toward the school before the two uniforms were able to reach the pad.
“This is a secured area,” one of them began. “You’re going to need to—”
“Lieutenant Dallas.” Eve flipped up her badge. “NYPSD. I need to speak with Sheriff Hyer. Is he on-scene?”
“This isn’t New York.” The second uniform stepped forward—leading, Eve thought dryly, with his balls. “The sheriff’s busy.”
“That’s funny, so am I. APA Reo?”
“We have a warrant to enter any and all of these facilities,” Reo began, and held up the copy she’d printed out. “To search same for evidence pertaining to two homicides in the State of New York, borough of Manhattan.”
“We have a secured scene,” the second uniform repeated, and planted his feet.
“Name and rank,” Eve snapped.
“Gaitor, Deputy, James County Sheriff’s Department.”
He sneered when he said it, and Eve allowed him to keep his skin, due to the possibility that he was just dirt stupid.
“You’re going to want to check with your superior, Deputy Gaitor, or I will detain you and charge you with obstruction of justice.”
“You don’t have any authority here.”
“This warrant gives me authority to fill out its terms and requirements, which were agreed to by the State of New Hampshire. So you’re going to contact your boss, Gaitor, within the next ten seconds, or I’m going to take you down, cuff you, and toss your idiotic, puffed-up ass in the nearest confinement facility.”
She saw it in his eyes, saw the twitch of his hand. “You reach for that weapon, Deputy, and you won’t have use of your hand for a week. But you won’t need it as I’ll have twisted your undersized dick into a pretzel so even the thought of jerking off will cause you unspeakable pain.”
“Jesus, Max, ease back.” The first deputy took his fellow by the arm. “I contacted the sheriff, Lieutenant. He’s coming out. We can walk over and meet him.”
“Appreciate it.”
“I love watching her work,” Roarke commented to Feeney.
“Was kind of hoping that asshole would reach for his weapon. Better show that way.”
“Maybe next time.”
Gaitor strode ahead, intercepting a man Eve recognized as Hyer. Hyer listened, shook his head. Then he pulled off his hat, rubbed his hand over his head before jabbing a finger toward one of the patrol cars.
Gaitor peeled off, stiff-legged. Hyer walked toward Eve.
“What’s New York doing dropping out of the sky in that big, black son of a bitch?”
“Search warrant, relating to two homicides on my turf. Lieutenant Dallas,” she added, offering a hand. “Homicide, NYPSD.”
“Jim Hyer, sheriff. And ain’t this a kick in the gonads? You threaten to manhandle and detain my deputy, New York City?”
“I did.”
“I’m betting he earned it. Got us a hell of a thing here. School president found dead as a split trout inside her private quarters.”
“That
would be Samuels, Evelyn?”
“It would.”
“And would cause of death be stabbing? Single wound, medical scalpel, to the heart.”
His eyes leveled, considered hers. “That would be one hundred percent correct. Gonna have to get you a stuffed ladybird as your prize this afternoon. We going to do some tit for tat here, New York City?”
“No problem for me. Peabody? My partner, Detective Peabody. I have with me the captain of our EDD sector and an EDD detective, two doctors, an APA, and an expert consultant, civilian. We’ll be at your disposal on your homicide, Sheriff, and will share the data that will link yours to ours.”
“Can’t ask for better than that. You want to see the body, I expect.”
“I do. If the rest of my team can be shown where to wait, my partner and I will take a look at your scene.”
“Freddie, take care of these nice tourists. It’s the damnedest thing,” he continued as they walked toward the main building of the Academy. “Victim had an appointment with some rich woman from out of state. Witness statements—those we’ve taken so far—and security cameras show them doing a quick tour, then going into the victim’s quarters. Refreshments were ordered prior and already in place. Eleven minutes later, the woman walks out, shuts the door, strolls out of the building and into the car she came with. Driver heads out, and they’re gone.”
He snapped a finger. “We got the vehicle, make, model, and its plates from the cameras. Duly registered in the name of the woman. We got her cold on the discs. Name of Desiree Frost.”
“It’ll be bogus,” Eve told him.
“Is that a fact?”
Schools never failed to give Eve the jitters, but she walked with Hyer across the great hall. It was silent as a tomb.
“Where do you have the students, the staff?”
“Moved the whole kit and caboodle to the theater in another building. They’re secure.”
They walked up the wide steps, stopped at the doorway of the scene. Eve saw, with some relief, that the body had not yet been moved. Inside were three people, two still wearing the protective suits of crime scene and the third examining the body.
“What we got here is Dr. Richards, our local ME, and Joe and Billy—they’re forensics.”