by J D Lasica
He paused at the doorway of the Nursery and began counting babies: about two dozen in all, ranging from a few hours to about a week old. The surrogates for these newborns were all kept in another wing of the clinic for their after-care; most surrogates (the term “surrogate mother” was discouraged to avoid any confusion) had already been discharged, knowing they would never again see the product of their labor after those fleeting moments in the delivery room.
As for the expectant parents? Waterhouse ransacked his memory trying to remember. Many had paid up to a quarter million dollars for their enriched little ones. They’d even set up appointments for when they could take their baby girls home. There would be a hellscape of recriminations and wailing and threats of lawsuits if Petrov carried out his threat. Waterhouse had no idea what kind of cover story he could come up with to paper over this fiasco.
Petrov came up next to his shoulder and peered into the room. “Beautiful, aren’t they?” He began to open the door when Waterhouse stopped him and pointed to the small sign next to the door: “You MUST wear a face mask when entering this room.” They both donned the light blue face coverings and entered. Waterhouse signaled to the nurse carrying the squalling newborn to move to another room. That colicky baby will grow up never knowing what a bullet she just dodged .
Petrov followed him into the Nursery and stopped at the first bassinet. He picked up the electronic tablet in the plastic holder attached to the bassinet. Unlike at a hospital or a typical fertility clinic, where a medical chart would merely record the basics—weight, length, abnormalities, and so on—the Nursery’s tablets were synced with the master database so one could see the results of the baby’s DNA test.
“Ah, nice.” Petrov read from the tablet. “Ashley here will grow up to be blonde, five foot ten, slim, and free of the asthma and dyslexia that runs in her family.” He gave a slight wave to the first security guard at the door, a bear of a man who entered and opened the bassinet with quivering fingers. The guard plucked out the newborn and held it away from his body like a canister of radioactive waste.
“No no no,” Petrov tsk-tsked. “Not like that.” He took the baby from the guard’s hands, tucked the baby into his arms in her little blanket, and began rocking her. He glanced at all the remaining security contractors behind the window to show them how it was done.
The guard tried again, picking up the newborn and cradling her in his big arms, a look of distress distorting his face. Petrov handed him the e-tablet that went with the baby. The guard slinked out of the Nursery and hurried down the hallway toward the exit.
Petrov went down the first long row, and then the second row, and finally the third row, reading each newborn’s tablet and handing one after the other off to his guards, saying what a nice addition they would be to his “collection,” saying how much he looked forward to them “blooming” with age. He counted off each one as he went, skipping over all the boys and the half-dozen Indian-American and African-American girls.
He got to the final bassinet and plucked out the fifth child. “Hello, little Nicole. You’re coming with me.” He held the infant in his arms as he walked out, and a guard trailed, holding the tablet with all the medical and DNA data.
They exited through the reception, and the receptionist caught Waterhouse’s eye, not sure if she should call security. He shook his head no, nothing to be done.
“Consider this a minor setback.” Petrov looked straight ahead as they marched toward the vehicles. “When you hit a billion dollars in revenue, think back to this day and remember that without our early money, none of this would exist.”
Waterhouse grabbed Petrov by the left shoulder, stopping him in his tracks.
“This is wrong!” Waterhouse said.
Petrov turned abruptly, a look of anger flashing in his eyes. His men went for their guns, but Petrov gave a slight shake of his head to signal that they should stand down.
He flashed a smile. “Right, wrong, these are not factors that should concern you.”
A guard opened the front passenger door of the lead SUV and Petrov climbed in, still holding little Nicole in his arms. He shut the door, then rolled down the window.
“What will happen to her?” Waterhouse asked. He met the baby’s doleful, accusing stare. Part of him didn’t want to know the answer.
Petrov laughed. “Check back with me in ten years.”
He turned to his left and snapped, “Drive!” Petrov poked his head out the window and called out, “We will see each other soon! ”
The caravan of SUVs headed out of the Birthrights Unlimited campus and, Waterhouse knew, toward Petrov’s fleet of private jets at Love Field. Toward a future where the fates of so many had just been changed.
18
Bel Air, California, August 19
K aden and Nico took a direct flight from New York to Los Angeles, stashing a few special ops essentials into their secured checked baggage. They rented a car—wincing at the “young driver surcharge”—and waited until twilight to show up at Blackburn’s estate in Bel Air. For all they knew, once they got past the guards, the crazy old dude might own a gun, so they staked out the place as darkness descended.
There was no activity inside the mansion that they could detect, so they decided to break in and see if they could find anything that could offer a clue. The home security system looked to be above average but nothing they couldn’t defeat.
Nico used a signal jammer to disable the wireless motion sensors along the fence perimeter, and they managed to slip into the underground garage. They passed by a Rolls-Royce, a Bentley, and a Bugatti—Kaden remembered reading a magazine article about Blackburn’s pointless $40 million fleet of exotic cars. From there, they took the stairs and emerged at the enormous illuminated infinity pool in the back yard .
Kaden went to work. She spotted two guards on foot patrol and ran the numbers in her head, calculating the range and the amount of immobilizing solution needed to take them down. Over the years she’d used a dart gun, crossbow, and blowgun, but this would not be close quarters, so she brought her spring-loaded dart rifle. She had to get the dosage and the CO2 air pressure just right—this thing could explode through dry wall at fifty feet, and she just wanted to knock out these guards, not send them to the hospital.
She fired and watched the first guard grab the side of his neck and, moments later, crumple to the ground. Nico signaled the location of the second guard, and she dispatched him with a shot square in the buttocks. He was down in less than a minute.
They moved to the house and found burglar-proof security windows along the first floor, so they climbed to the roof where Nico disabled a bedroom window sensor with a high-frequency magnetic field. They climbed in and headed downstairs. Nico jammed the main security keypad, Kaden disabled two sets of surveillance cameras, and finally Nico disarmed the interior infrared motion detectors with a protocol that temporarily blinded them. As with nearly all home security systems, the signals sent from the sensors to the control panels weren’t encrypted, making it a cinch to intercept the data, decipher the commands, and take control.
The guards’ sedatives would wear off in an hour or two. Until then, the house was theirs.
“Let’s find the study,” Nico suggested.
They found it on the first floor, past a lounge for watching movies, a bowling alley, art gallery, gourmet kitchen, and what looked like a children’s playroom.
Kaden sat in the chair behind an executive desk where she figured Blackburn conducted business. The setup looked like a command and control center, with an array of computer screens and TV monitors in a half-circle. She booted up the hard drive, Nico managed to bypass the password and gain root access, and she began examining the files on screen.
“What are you looking for?” Nico asked.
“Not sure yet.”
Kaden found it clumsy typing with thin latex gloves, but she kept them on as she sorted through financial records, text documents, and browser histories. Blackburn seeme
d to be fixated on historical figures and medical sites for the most part.
She couldn’t find anything related to her name, Kaden Baker, but there were a lot of entries about one of his investments, Birthrights Unlimited, going back several years. Looks like he was a big early investor. His calendar showed that he’d been taking lots of meetings with the company’s CEO.
“We’re running out of time,” Nico said.
She gave up her seat, and Nico managed to install a keylogger to transmit log-in credentials in the background and a secret backdoor buried deep in the operating system that would allow them to remotely commandeer Blackburn’s computer system.
“Time to go.” Nico hit the final stroke and the monitor went dark.
They still had not found answers to the questions that brought them here.
She followed Nico down the museum-length hallway, past framed images of Blackburn, formal galas, and grip-and-grin photos of the guy posing with presidents and power brokers. Not a child’s photo in sight.
They had come up empty for now, but she was certain there were clues in Blackburn’s digital footprints that would reveal his intentions—and his involvement in her life.
Who are you? What do you want from me?
19
Dallas, August 19
A half hour in the hot tub, Waterhouse liked to say, was better than sex—no need to satisfy anyone but yourself. He sank a few inches lower in the tank, letting the underwater jets stroke his shoulders. His back was a knot of nervous energy, thanks in no small part to Dmitri Petrov, and his upcoming business meetings in New York were adding to the stress. Blackburn wanted to meet him there and no doubt interrogate him about the status of the grave team operation.
After a few more minutes he stepped out, grabbed a towel, and descended the private stairway from the Retreat to his suite. No one except the room attendants was permitted into his private lair. Not every guest would appreciate his sense of aesthetics and choice of décor.
He swept past his rhino horn chessboard and collection of mounted animals: the red panda, the northern spotted owl, the San Joaquin kit fox with its rusty gray fur and black eyes. That fox was his favorite—lifelike and ready to pounce.
He paused in front of thirty-foot-long aquarium holding his collection of endangered king salmon. They looked fine, gliding around the oxygenated tank with the chilling unit and wave simulator, their olive-rust heads and silver bellies flashing in the morning light.
Few things in life comforted him like his private collection of endangered species. It wasn’t about possession. It was about something deeper. The knowledge that his collection was always accessible—at his immediate, absolute disposal. Something pure and cleansing about that kind of control. Nobody understood this side of him. Least of all his two ex-wives.
“Number Six, get me Alan Tornquist,” he said.
It was just after daybreak but not too early to rouse his chief legal counsel.
Waterhouse’s smartphone buzzed and he answered. “Tornquist here,” came a groggy-sounding voice.
No time for pleasantries. “I need an update on the Petrov matter. How do we handle these families?”
After Petrov’s brazen power play at the Fertility Clinic and Birthing Center yesterday, he asked Tornquist to find any loophole that allowed Birthrights Unlimited to invalidate the contracts of the five families that expected delivery of a baby girl this week. They would have been shocked if they learned that their flesh and blood was now a resident of the Minsk Children’s Home and Family Services.
“I was just about to message you,” Tornquist said. “My recommendation? Each family receives a full refund, plus a $100,000 settlement in return for signing a hold harmless and nondisclosure agreement, plus, if they so choose, an opportunity to select a different surrogate and take delivery of their newborn in nine months’ time, at no cost. In return for the delay, they still get their little bundle of joy and they have a few hundred thousand extra in their pocket.”
Waterhouse mulled this over. Overnight he had crafted a plausible cover story. There had been a mix-up in the electronic records and, alas, there was no live birth after all. Their little one died of a tragic umbilical cord accident in the hours before birth.
“That should work,” Waterhouse said, pained by the financial hit Birthrights would absorb. But better that than risk word of this leaking out. “All right, send me the details and we’ll coordinate an outreach to the families before lunchtime.”
“Sounds good.”
He hung up and hopped into the shower. When he stepped out and began to dress, he saw the kitchen staff had set up the breakfast he’d ordered last night. He wolfed down his French toast with a nice dry cappuccino as he checked his messages on his mobile. When he finished, he headed down the elevator for his first meeting of the day.
Henry Lee and Sharon Sullivan were already waiting for him at the entrance to the Fertility Clinic and Birthing Center.
Lee pulled him aside and lowered his voice. “Do you think we should go ahead with this meeting with Sullivan? The early numbers— ”
“Fill me in afterward.” He dismissed Lee’s objections with a wave of his hand.
Waterhouse greeted Sullivan, who was wearing a tan power suit and high heel boots. The trio entered the building together and turned left, into the corridor that led to the Birthing Center. This part of the building was off-limits to visitors and confined to doctors, nurses, and patients. A quarter of the patients were women who wanted to conceive and give birth to their own child, and three-quarters were gestational surrogates who were carrying someone else’s child. Birthrights Unlimited didn’t permit so-called traditional surrogacy, where the surrogate used her own eggs and was biologically related to the child. Too many legal downsides.
While many clinics still catered to women who wanted to carry their own baby to term, the Birthrights model—which pushed the model of surrogates carrying prescreened, optimized embryos—was more advanced and forward-looking.
If Waterhouse had anything to say about it, this would be not just one more option for women around the world. It would be the default choice. The obvious choice for every family around the globe who could afford to pay.
His vision would soon be a reality. Birthrights would revolutionize childbirth and pave the way for the New Enhanced Family, the era of parenthood by intelligent design. They would redefine motherhood itself —decouple it from the primitive world of traditional pregnancy. What are we, barbarians?
But challenges loomed ahead. How to scale this to a global clientele? How to reduce high costs and expand limited inventory?
That is what this meeting was out to tackle.
Waterhouse led the way down the Birthing Center corridor, past a delivery room with a delivery in progress and toward the new wing that was finally open.
“As you know,” Waterhouse began, “this area has been off-limits for—”
“I’ve been meaning to bring that up,” Sullivan interrupted. “The Lab. The Multimedia Center. Building 32. This new wing. I can’t access any of it with my clearance level! What happened to our agreement to open up Birthrights to more transparency? How do you expect me to do my job when I’m given only a sketchy idea of what goes on around here?”
Waterhouse decided to let her insolence slide, given that Sullivan was such a force of nature in the marketing world. He wasn’t yet ready to upgrade her security clearance so she could gain access to every building on site. Only he, Lee, Conrad, and Harrison had full Level One access to virtually every corner of Birthrights Unlimited.
“I hear you,” Waterhouse demurred. “I’ll take it under advisement. Let’s take things one step at a time. ”
Waterhouse opened the door of the new Intelligent Birth wing, and they entered. Muted crimson lighting radiated from the recessed lights in the ceiling. It took a minute for his eyes to adjust to the dimly lit chamber. Along the walls were two rows of odd-looking machines filled with a clear liquid and small creatures f
loating inside the tanks. It reminded him of a trip he took to the Monterey Bay Aquarium as a boy.
“Lee and I wanted to include you in this discussion because we value your input as a member of the executive team and because, frankly, you’re a woman.”
“Ah, you’re aware of that,” Sullivan said.
She was wearing her Versace black leather boots today. Yes, very aware.
Waterhouse started again. “Let me explain why we approved this build-out.” He settled in front of the first machine and outlined the first problem: high costs.
“The median cost of donated eggs has soared to $40,000. That’s well above the maximum under the national ethical guidelines for what egg donors should be paid.” Fortunately, the guidelines could be ignored without consequence. “Now every college woman with a smartphone can download an egg donor app where they can sell their eggs to the highest bidder. Some of these Ivy League women with good grades are commanding six figures in the fresh eggs marketplace.” Outrageous .
“The second cost to consider is the high price of surrogates. The average U.S.-based surrogate pockets $80,000 for her nine-month womb rental, not counting medical expenses. Some of them hold out for six figures, too.” Out and out extortion!
“All this, despite our efforts to make surrogacy friction-free,” he went on. “There’s nothing more annoying than dealing with visits from excitable parents-to-be, asking if you’re eating the right foods and avoiding alcohol and not doing anything risky. Our surrogates never meet the parents, and that’s where Sullivan’s digital hand-holding comes in.” He turned to her .
Sullivan straightened and cleared her throat. “Marketing has agreed to produce videos and photos of our surrogates as they advance through pregnancy from months one and two all the way to the due date. But we’re just figuring out a process to streamline things. We’re creating media updates for eight to ten of our surrogates per week while our birthing centers here and in China are pushing through thirty or forty new surrogacies every week.”