Fire Of Heaven 01 - Blood of Heaven

by Bill Myers

  But something else had caught his attention. “Look at that!”

  Katherine turned to see that he was pointing toward a giant cedar.

  “What?” Eric demanded.

  “That.”

  “It’s just a tree.”

  “No, past that. Look.”

  A huge, pale moon was rising behind it.

  “It’s just the moon.”

  “You’re not seeing it. Look at it.”

  “What?” Eric repeated.

  “Look!”

  Katherine continued to stare with them. And, as she looked she began to see something else. The way the cedar stretched out toward the sky, its limbs graceful and drooping, with the full, glowing orb rising behind it. There was a silent splendor here. A quiet strength.

  “Don’t be stupid,” Eric said. He pulled open the back door of the car and climbed in. “It’s just the moon. You see it lots of times in the day.”

  Katherine turned slowly to watch Coleman, who was still staring, transfixed. Then she looked back to the tree. She couldn’t find the words, but she was beginning to understand. There was something about this moment, this tiny detail of life, that seemed bigger and more powerful than all of the grandiose plans and accomplishments of her own noisy, scampering little life. For the briefest second she too felt like a shadow dancing across the surface of something far deeper, far more eternal than she could ever be. She tried to swallow and found a lump in her throat. It had nothing to do with pain and everything to do with joy. Katherine Lyon was happy. Happier than she’d been in a long, long time.

  The ride down the mountain was full of more Indian tales, bantering, and laughter. It took nearly an hour to reach Genodyne, but it seemed like minutes. The trembling inside Katherine ebbed and flowed, but it never disappeared. It wasn’t until they entered Genodyne’s lobby that the joy started to fade. First there was the problem of taking Eric onto the grounds.

  “I’m sorry,” the receptionist explained. “No children allowed in the laboratory area.”

  “But he’s my friend,” Coleman insisted.

  “I’m sorry, the rules are specific. He may visit the offices or our cafeteria, but he won’t be admitted to the labs. No children are.”

  “Call Dr. Murkoski, let me talk to him.”

  “Dr. Murkoski is unavailable, but if you’ll have a seat, I’m sure —”

  Suddenly Katherine saw Coleman’s expression change. It was more than concern. It was fear. She followed his gaze to the front door, where a man was just entering the lobby and approaching the desk. He was short, in his fifties, with wire-rim glasses and thinning, brown hair.

  When he glanced up, the man seemed equally surprised by Coleman’s expression. “I’m sorry,” he said, “have we met?”

  Coleman did his best to recover. “No. I don’t think so.”

  But the man’s interest had been piqued. “Are you certain?”

  Coleman shook his head.

  The man extended his hand. “My name is Steiner. Harold Steiner.”

  Coleman took it. “William Michaels.”

  Noticing the scratches on Coleman’s arms and then Eric’s, Steiner said, “Looks like you two had quite a tussle.”

  “Yeah.” Eric grinned. “And the blackberries won.”

  The smiles lasted a fraction longer than necessary before Steiner again asked, “Are you sure we’ve not met?”

  Coleman shook his head. “I’m sure.” Then, resting his hand on Eric’s shoulder, he quickly brought the meeting to an end. “Well, if you’ll excuse us.”

  “Certainly.”

  Coleman nodded and turned Eric toward the door.

  “Wait a minute,” Eric protested, “I thought we were —”

  “Plans have changed.”

  “But —”

  “Let’s go.”

  “But —”

  “Plans have changed.” The sternness in Coleman’s voice surprised Eric, and he allowed himself to be moved toward the exit.

  “Excuse me, Mr. Michaels?” It was the receptionist. “Don’t you want to wait and see —”

  “We’ll be back later,” Coleman said over his shoulder. “Tell him something has come up, we’ll be back a little later.”

  Katherine hadn’t missed a thing, and she had the good sense to play along. After a parting nod to Steiner, she turned and accompanied Coleman and Eric out the door. But as she walked out, she knew that Steiner was still watching.

  CHAPTER 10

  O’BRIEN HADN’T RUN AN electrophoresis gel since grad school. Although there had been some changes in chemicals and hardware, the process remained essentially the same. It was also the same process Wolff had undertaken seventy-two hours earlier. The one he had called O’Brien about. The one that O’Brien now suspected led to his death.

  It was a little after ten in the evening when he quietly slipped into the lab on the third floor. If Wolff had found a problem while running a gel, that must have meant he was getting different identification bands on the DNA. There were only three possible explanations for that. The first was that Wolff had made a mistake, an unlikely option given his meticulous attention to detail. This left only two other possibilities. Either the GOD gene had mutated on its own — or someone had deliberately altered it.

  There was only one way to tell. Double-check the gene’s fingerprint. Run another gel.

  The procedure was fairly simple. First O’Brien pulled out a sample of the GOD gene from the freezer. From this sample he would need to cut out the specific section they’d been focusing on. But instead of cutting with mechanical knives or scissors, they used chemical ones called restriction enzymes. There were hundreds of these enzymes to choose from, but in this case they had been using EcoRI, a distant cousin to the deadly E. coli bacteria that had endeared itself to the fast-food chains a while back.

  By mixing the DNA with the chemical scissors and then incubating it in an Eppendorf tube for an hour in 37 degrees C water, O’Brien was able to cut open the DNA molecule and remove and dissect the precise section of the GOD gene he wanted.

  Next he melted a clear, blue, Jello-like substance in the microwave. He poured this hot liquid into the five-inch-by-eleven-inch electrophoresis gel box. Carefully he inserted a serrated piece of Plexiglas, which looked like a thick comb, into the liquid at one end. He waited patiently as the gel hardened, then removed the comb, leaving several small holes, or wells, where the teeth had been.

  It was tedious work, but O’Brien loved it. Being back at a lab bench, working the front lines, was a far cry from the paperwork and politics he was daily subjected to. And, though he appreciated the money and prestige, a large part of him missed the good old days when he and Beth were first starting out. When she had thought him a hero. When he was breaking new ground. The work had been hard, but at least it had carried a sense of accomplishment. For the past several months, he hadn’t been so sure what he was accomplishing.

  He glanced at the clock — 11:15. So far there had been no interruptions, no late-night insomniacs swinging by to see how his or her particular batch of DNA-laced bacteria was breeding. And more importantly, no head of the gene therapy division showing up, demanding to know what he was up to.

  Once again, O’Brien scolded himself for giving Murkoski so much power. Of course he had his excuses — trying to keep a multimillion-dollar biotech company on course creates a few distractions. Besides, everyone told him that a real leader must delegate, delegate, and delegate. Well, he had delegated, all right. And now something was wrong. Not only had Murkoski refused to return his calls or show up at the office, but the government contacts he knew to be involved in the project were also strangely unavailable. Yes, indeed, something was very wrong.

  As O’Brien continued to work, allowing his thoughts to drift, the silence of the lab began to play tricks on him. Whenever the air-conditioning kicked on or the refrigerators turned over, he was certain that someone had entered the lab. It’s not that he didn’t enjoy returning to his la
boratory roots. He just would have enjoyed it more if he didn’t suspect that his life was in danger.

  Was he being paranoid? Probably. But he had grown so out of touch with the project, and Murkoski had such a raging ego — who knew what the kid was up to.

  His mind drifted to his children and to Beth. How he missed them. But, until this mess was straightened out, it wouldn’t hurt for them to stay in Mexico. At least there they would be safe.

  He crossed to the small D.C. transformer and attached the wires to the gel box. The black wire to the black terminal on the left, the red wire to the red terminal on the right. Running a gel was a fairly simple procedure. Since every gene is a different size and moves through the gel at its own rate, he would place the DNA in the little wells he had made and run 100 volts of direct current over them from one end of the gel box to the other. Then, after a prescribed period of time, he would be able to see how far each section of gene had traveled along the current as it pushed its way through the gel. Wherever the sections stopped and congregated, a band would be created. And it was the pattern of these bands that gave the precise length and identification of the gene they were testing. If there was the slightest discrepancy between the bands in the batch he was now running and the benchmarks they had established in their earlier identification and testing of the GOD gene, he would know.

  He reached for a small beaker of electrophoresis buffer and poured it over the hardened gel. This was to ensure electrical contact between the two terminals at each end of the box. As he poured it, he couldn’t help noticing the beaker shaking in his hands.

  Next he mixed a fluorescent dye called ethidium bromide into the DNA. This would allow him to clearly see the pattern of the bands when they were viewed under ultraviolet light.

  Now came the hard part. He grabbed an electronic pipette, a measuring device about the size of a small turkey baster. He adjusted it to ten microliters and with a trembling hand sucked up some of the DNA and placed it into the little wells he had made. It was embarrassing how his hand shook, but it served as a clear reminder of just how nervous he really was. It took all of his concentration and willpower just to drop the DNA into the tiny wells.

  Then he heard it. The whine of the elevator. He was only two doors down from the elevator, and the lab’s door was wide open. He froze and listened.

  It stopped. Someone had brought it down to the lobby.

  A moment later it started up again. He tried to picture it moving up the elevator shaft, guessing the time it would take to pass each floor. It had passed the second and was heading toward the third. With any luck it would continue right on up to the fourth or even the —

  It sighed to a stop. It was on the third floor. His floor. He could not hear the doors open, but he knew that someone was stepping out. He watched the lab door, angry at himself for leaving it open. Quickly he scanned the bench area in front of him. It would be impossible to disguise what he was doing. Anyone looking in would know he was running a gel. He strained, listening for footsteps, but the air-conditioning made it impossible to hear.

  He stepped to the right, behind the cupboard, just out of sight. With eight other labs on the floor, the odds were unlikely that whoever had come up in the elevator was heading into this one.

  Unless, of course, they were coming for him.

  He saw the brief flicker of a shadow on the tiled floor as a form passed the door and continued down the hall. He closed his eyes and let out a quiet sigh. Then he heard:

  “Hello? Anybody in here?”

  Relieved that it was a woman’s voice and not Murkoski’s, O’Brien stepped into view.

  She was beautiful. Mid-twenties, long dark hair, jade-green eyes. She had a lean yet sensual figure and didn’t seem shy about showing it off with the help of a snug knit top and a short, tweed skirt. In some ways, she reminded him of Beth in her younger days. Before the children. When they were helplessly in love. When she still admired him.

  “Oh, Dr. O’Brien. I saw the door open and was wondering …” She stopped as she saw the gel box and beakers in front of him.

  He flashed a boyish, self-conscious grin. “Just brushing up on my lab technique,” he lied. “I really miss rolling up the old sleeves and getting my hands dirty.”

  “I see.” She smiled. Was it his imagination or was she flirting with him? The thought both excited him and set off tiny little alarms.

  He cleared his throat. “I’m sorry. I, uh — I don’t know your name. Are you new?”

  She moved toward him, extending her hand, not taking her eyes off him. “Yes, I’m Youngren. Tisha Youngren.” They shook hands. Hers was warm and firm.

  “Philip O’Brien.”

  “I know.”

  He smiled. “Yes, I suppose so.”

  She stood a moment, unmoving. She seemed to sense the effect she was having on him, and she clearly enjoyed it.

  “Well, uh …” He motioned to the counter, indicating his work.

  “Of course,” she said, “I’ve got plenty to do, myself. It was a pleasure to finally meet you, Dr. O’Brien.”

  “Thanks. Me, too.”

  There was that smile again. She turned and glided toward the door. O’Brien couldn’t help staring. When she arrived at the door she turned one last time. “Oh, Dr. O’Brien. The next time you’re running a gel?”

  “Yes?”

  “You really should wear gloves.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “The ethidium bromide you’re using there” — she pointed to a beaker on the counter — “it’s a carcinogen.”

  “Oh, right.” O’Brien glanced at his hands, hoping he hadn’t spilled any. “It’s been a while.”

  She smiled one last time. “I can tell.” Then, without a word, she turned and disappeared out the door.

  O’Brien relaxed, thinking again of how much the woman had looked like Beth in their younger days. So attractive. So young and alive. With the thought came the guilt. What did he think he was doing? He had no business flirting with anyone, much less an employee, no matter how beautiful.

  Still, with Beth gone…

  He angrily pushed the thought out of his mind and walked to the gel box. It would take another hour for the bands to migrate and establish their patterns.

  “You sure I can’t talk you into some wine?” Katherine asked as she crossed to the kitchen counter and poured herself another glass.

  “Thanks, but no,” Coleman said.

  “Come on,” she teased, “word has it that even your genetic forerunner tipped a few.”

  Coleman smiled and shook his head.

  As she raised her third glass to her lips, she could see the concern in his eyes. Yet at the same time she knew he wasn’t judging her. He never judged her.

  The day had been too perfect to end, and she had asked whether he wanted to join her and Eric for dinner. Nothing special, just some leftover chicken reheated in the microwave, a little salad, and anything else she could rummage from the cupboard. Cooking had never been her specialty.

  Coleman had gratefully accepted, and the dinner had been as enjoyable as the day. It was late now, but Katherine still didn’t want it to end. The more time she spent with this man, the more time she wanted — and the stronger the trembling inside her grew. Whether it was about her son, her life, even her forgotten faith — whatever they talked about, this man seemed to make everything inside her come alive again. And now all she wanted was to do the same. To touch some part of him where no one else had been, someplace deep inside, someplace she could call her own.

  She had sent Eric to bed (which probably meant lights off, but computer on) and had spent the past hour and a half in deep conversation with Coleman. They had covered their likes, dislikes, pet peeves, fears, vulnerabilities. Maybe it was the wine, maybe it was Coleman, maybe it was everything, but it had been a long time since she’d been able to talk so openly and so deeply.

  Still, there were the secrets. Most of them his.

  “There’s just no
way you’ll tell me who that man was, will you?” she said as she crossed to the sofa and sat beside him.

  Coleman shook his head. “Somebody from another life.”

  “More like a ghost, by the expression on your face.”

  Coleman nodded and rubbed the top of his shoulder.

  “You okay?”

  “Yeah. It’s just Murkoski’s little reminder that I should have gone in for my checkup.”

  “That chemical leash thing?”

  Coleman tried to smile. “ ‘Having the flu times ten,’ I think is how he put it. When he returns my call, I need to set up another place for the checkups.”

  “Why?”

  “That man we saw today. He could prove a real threat to the experiment.”

  “But you won’t tell me why.”

  “It’s the past, Katherine.”

  There was her name again. And each time she heard it, it took just a little longer to recover. “And there’s no way you will talk about your past?”

  He shook his head. “That part of me is dead, that man is no longer alive.”

  Once again, Katherine felt a mixture of warmth, weakness, and buoyancy. “You’re a person of many mysteries, William Michaels — or whatever your name is.”

  He smiled, then gently turned the tables on her. “What about you? It seems to me you have your own share of mysteries.”

  “But women are supposed to be mysterious. It makes us more alluring.” The phrase came out sexier than she had intended, but that was okay.

  He looked at the carpet, almost embarrassed, which made him even more attractive. She changed the subject. “What about your childhood?” she asked. “You said you grew up in Nebraska?”

  “Tecumseh.”

  “Named after some Indian chief.”

  “That’s right. Population 1,702. Not much to say, really. We were dirt poor, lived in a little trailer.” He shrugged. “But we managed.”

  “Your family? Brothers, sisters?”

  “I had a dad who beat me, a brother who overdosed on heroin, and a mother who killed herself trying to hold us all together.”