". . . speedier and more complete recovery from devastating strokes of all kinds, whether they be hemorrhages, embolic, or atherosclerotic . . ."Yanked back to the less than glowing prospects of Kathleen's future, Richard let his gaze drift down to where Jimmy Norris sat at an otherwise empty conference table behind Downs. The man repeatedly shifted in his chair and seemed self-conscious, his eyes continually searching the crowd in front of him. He looked as if he weren't entirely certain what some of them might do.
". . . regeneration of myelin around the nerves stripped bare by MS, restoration of bony surfaces ravaged by arthritis, and possible cures for diseases such as diabetes. Thank you very much."
Applause broke out, but not as enthusiastically as Richard would have predicted, given the momentous message everyone had just heard. Instead it quickly dissipated into a low discontented rumbling as the white-coat set headed for the exits.
"Bloody dog-and-pony show," someone muttered, shoving past him. "Didn't tell us any specifics. And precious little science . . ."
". . . fucking circus. They're a few in administration who ain't happy with her either. She apparently called the media on her own without going through channels . . ."
". . . I'm surprised at Downs, pulling a publicity stunt like this. She'll be on the talk shows next . . ."But there was nothing muted about the dozens of people dressed in civilian clothes who converged on her with cameras flashing and fistfuls of microphones waving in her face. Their shouts filled the room.
"Will stromal cells deflect attacks from groups such as the Legion of the Lord?"
"Were Doctors Hamlin and Lockman working with you?"
"Were their murders or the bomb attack on Dr. Richard Steele's house related to stem cells in any way?"
Her face quickly lost its warm hue. "Those matters are better discussed with the police," she said. "I'm here to discuss science."
Their questions grew more strident.
"Why have you not identified the prospective patient?"
"Because he's very ill and has a right to privacy."
"Will stromal cells be as potent as those originating from embryos?"
"I can only say that in the case of restoring heart muscle they seem to work fine.""Are you calling for a halt to the use of live embryos as a source for stem cells?"
"Of course not."
There wouldn't be much science discussed in this free-for-all, thought Richard, moving down the aisle against the current of all the doctors who were leaving. Making his way to where Downs continued to hold court with the reporters, he saw Norris's restless gaze lock onto his progress. For a second it looked as though Norris might move forward to head him off, but a stocky reporter with bushy black hair who'd been questioning him laid a restraining hand on his arm and kept his attention.
As soon as Downs spotted Richard she blanched, her eyes widening with alarm. She continued to engage the reporters, yet seemed more hesitant with her replies and kept sliding uneasy glances in his direction. Finally she said, "Excuse me, someone is signaling me that I've got a case in ER. Dr. Norris will have to answer the rest of your questions." Before anyone could protest, she broke free of them, took Richard by the elbow, and led him in the direction of the nearest exit. "For God's sake, Richard, not here!" she whispered as she hurried him along.
"Relax. I just came to say maybe I judged you too harshly yesterday. The Francesca I thought I knew wouldn't kill anyone." She stopped in her tracks. "You're serious?"
He nodded.
Relief suffused her face. "Thank God, you finally believe me—"
"Oh, I still think the lot of you were using stem cells on unknowing patients. What's changed is that I'm willing to consider it's Blaine or Edwards who unleashed a madman to cover their tracks."
Her eyebrows snapped into another frown. "Really, Richard—"
"Hey, aren't you Dr. Steele?" interrupted a woman with a video camera standing outside the ring of reporters that had now besieged Norris.
"No, I'm the orderly," Richard answered, grabbing Downs by the arm and leading her the rest of the way to the door. "We need a cardiologist in CMU immediately."
Entering the corridor he pulled her to a recessed cubbyhole housing a coffee machine. "And the Francesca I knew wouldn't stand by and not do everything in her power to prevent this nut from killing again," he whispered, feeding the slots with enough quarters to buy them both cappuccinos. "So give the police what they need to press Blaine about who the killer is. Or Edwards for that matter, if we ever find him."
She glanced to the right and left as she sipped the coffee he'd just handed her. For the moment the passageway remained free of anyone within earshot. "Okay, Richard. Suppose you're right about Hamlin, Lockman, Edwards, and Blaine. I still can't help you."
"You can't stop a killer?"
"I won't put myself in jail for something I had nothing to do with."
"Cut the crap, Francesca. And it's not so much jail you have to worry about. It's this killer. Don't think your going public about stromal cells will protect you from becoming one of his targets if that's what this press conference is all about. You're in as much need of police protection as Kathleen and me. All Blaine or Edwards have to do is tell him you were once using embryonic tissue, and you'll be in his sights if you're not already."
"Trying to frighten me won't change my mind, Richard. If he kills me, so be it, as long as my work succeeds, intact and untainted."
"What?"
"You heard me."
"You'd rather die than admit what happened?"
She grimaced. "Of course I don't want to die." The lines around her eyes and mouth softened. "Richard, I'm going to try and make you understand, make you see why I couldn't ever do what you're asking."
"I'm listening."
She took another sip. "Suppose, just for argument's sake, I've done what you suspect. But unlike Hamlin, who was in too big a hurry and willing to cut corners he'd never have gotten away with in a properly monitored study, I did my trials on animals, refined a procedure that worked, and took all necessary steps to make sure I would, above all, 'do no harm.' "
"Except you left out informed consent."
She ignored the jibe. "If, however, on the eve of delivering the benefits of this work to the world, I had to testify against what he did, there's no way I could keep my technique from getting lumped in with his, at least in the public's eye. His mess, by association, would cast a cloud of suspicion over my results, no matter how impeccable they were, and a miraculous treatment that could save millions of lives a year might be discarded along with his garbage, or seriously delayed at the very least. I couldn't risk that, even to save my own life."
"So you admit you've used stem cells on patients?"
"I admit nothing. I'm simply trying to persuade you to back off, trying to explain as nicely as I can how even if your fantastic story were true, I can't let myself get caught up in other people's mistakes."
"But this guy nearly killed my son."
"Then go after him. Make Blaine tell you who it is. Just don't jeopardize a breakthrough of this magnitude by bad-mouthing me."
"You heartless bitch!"
"Yes, I suppose I am, from your point of view," she said, her voice as cool as if she was discussing the weather.
She was nuts, he thought. A fucking martyr in waiting. A prima donna on a mission. He couldn't imagine a single other thing he could say that might change her mind. Against this kind of resistance, his idea of trying to shake her up by an ethics review board was a joke. "Then at least tell me this. Have you or Norris warned Blaine or Edwards that I'm onto them."
"Now why would I do a thing like that?"
"Francesca!"
"Of course not. At least I haven't. And I doubt Jimmy would either."
"Do you know where Edwards is?"
"No, why would I—"
"Have you any idea why Hamlin's two patients died?"
"No. I doubt even Hamlin knew. If he did, he sure never told me." She
gave a little smile that even the Mona Lisa would have envied. "But I'm the last person he'd confide his screwups to. He knew I wasn't a big fan."
"Dr. Downs," a woman coming out of the amphitheater called.
Richard recognized Edwards's secretary.
"They told me inside you'd come out this way," she said, stepping in front of Downs. "There's someone phoning long distance for you from Mexico City."
"For me? I don't understand."
"It's a Dr. Ramiros. He heard your press conference on CNN, and wants to talk with you."
"Why me?"
"He initially demanded to speak with Dr. Edwards, but when I explained we'd no idea where he was, the gentleman insisted he speak with you immediately. Says he's the CEO of an outfit called Fountainhead Pharmaceuticals."
"Oh, Francesca, there you are," called another woman, also exiting the amphitheater. Richard had seen her over the years in the clerical pool at the cardiology department. "I've just received a slew of messages for you and Dr. Norris. Every corporate drug company in the country seems to be after you."
Downs looked truly puzzled.
"Congratulations," Richard said. "Your little performance today has unleashed a bidding war."
"Oh, my God! That's not what I intended."
"Then you were naive." He spun on his heel, cheeks burning, and returned to the amphitheater, unsure now if even in her moments of apparent frankness she hadn't been conning him.
But what infuriated him the most was her cold self-assurance that he couldn't touch her— especially since she was right.
Back inside the large room he looked for Norris, hoping to provoke a confrontation with him that might prove more productive. Then Richard saw him disappearing through one of the far exits with the bushy-haired reporter he'd been talking to earlier.
Even researchers, he knew, tended to vacate their labs by five on a Friday evening. This said, he kept Norris talking for a half hour longer, just to be sure the place was deserted. The man seemed especially eager to show off his own works, probably from his feeling a little jealous of all the attention paid Francesca Downs. After a request to actually see stromal cells, in no time the scientist was hunched over the eyepiece of a microscope and projecting fuchsia-colored slides of pulsing cardiac tissue onto an overhead screen. "We don't let them reach this stage for the injection into the host's myocardium, of course," he explained. "But as long as the tracks of undifferentiated cells we lay down in the scar tissue also have contact with normal surrounding heart muscle, they'll receive their orders to form new cardiac cells, link up with each other, and start pumping, exactly like this . . ."
It would be a simple matter to step up from behind, yank his head back by the hair, and slit his windpipe with a scalpel.
Not enough to kill. Simply to render him silent, exactly as he had with Lockman. Because for Jimmy Norris, mass executioner of the Lord's seed, he had a special vengeance in mind, and hours to carry it out.
". . . in a matter of weeks we see the first signs of improvement, but full benefit, enough to make a clinical difference and increase the strength of a living heart, takes months."
He fingered the instrument's handle in his pants pocket, sliding the plastic sheath off the razor edge, and moved closer, eyeing the man's neck. The skin looked leathery, the sort toughened by sun and weather, and might prove hard to cut. He also noticed wiry gray bristles from the lower edge of the man's beard extending below his Adam's apple to where they would interfere with a sideways stroke.
"The patient who we'll be treating," Norris went on, "ought to feel a profound reversal of his heart failure after ninety days." Norris smiled proudly and looked up from the microscope at his guest. In turn the man approvingly beamed at the researcher and moved as if to give him a hug.
Norris never saw the scalpel.
His visitor had reached around and brought its tip to the hollow below his voice box from the other side of his head, grinning as he made the move.
The pain burned all the way down Norris's chest and up to his ears. He attempted to scream, but only a massive hissing noise exploded out the front of his throat. Instinctively his hands flew to the wound and clasped the lacerated opening, blood spilling down his shirt.
But surprisingly little, he reassured himself, frantically exploring the damage, his fingers awash in wet warmth. The major vessels had been completely spared, he realized. He needn't die from this. He looked into the wildly exuberant face of the man still grinning at him. Or was he simply sentenced to remain alive longer than Lockman?
Before he could start to struggle, a quick pull toppled him and his stool backward, dashing his head against the linoleum floor. The blow set off a blazing light inside his brain, but didn't knock him completely unconscious. He could hear a ripping sound and feel his arms and legs being taped together.
"Now I can take my time with you," he heard his captor say from far too close, and he could sense a warmth against his cheeks that had a sour smell.
He snapped open his eyes; the man's face floated inches above his own. He tried to wrench himself free, straining and bucking against his ties. He again attempted to yell, producing only rasping noises out of his windpipe.
"Do you understand why you are to be punished, Dr. Norris?" the man demanded, continuing to hover over him.
Norris violently shook his head and managed to back up a few feet.
"Then I'll cite your crimes," his captor continued, scurrying forward, keeping them almost mouth to mouth. "You are guilty of destroying the Lord's seed, ripping out the cells that would form their hearts, their brains, their eyes, their very limbs . . ." He paused. "It's a long inventory of debts to pay."
Norris heard himself letting out loud chuffs of air and felt tears running down his cheeks. The fire in his throat spread to his face, and a coppery taste filled his mouth, making him choke. He started to shake his head. No! No! No!" But the Lord is quite clear on the rendering of such accounts."
The blade flashed under the fluorescent lights.
"Do you recognize me, from when I used to work here?"
Norris gave another shake of his head.
He reached in his pocket and pulled out the worn photo.
"Recognize him?"
Norris seemed to study the picture. Eventually he shook his head.
"No? Well, it doesn't matter. He was a lot younger then, and the pictures in the paper when they killed him didn't do justice to the man. One hell of a soldier though. It was him who taught me how to shoot. I helped him pick off a half dozen abortionists before they cornered him. Happened outside of Rochester after our last job. He held off the troopers long enough for me to get away, then took his own life rather than be captured. But he'd be proud of my taking the fight to guys like you. 'The next war' he used to call it."
Norris was passing out again. "Hey! Wake up. Tell me, have you had enough? Do you want to die now?"
His victim swallowed, sending rivulets of blood out the corners of his mouth. After a few seconds he nodded yes.
"Well, that's just too bad, because I won't be letting you off that easy. You get to be buried alive with your old pal Edwards. You and all your pieces. It'll be days before they find you, plenty of time for you to repent before finally meeting your maker. By then the others on my list will be dead. Maybe you'll linger long enough and be the last to go, and they'll all be waiting to greet you in hell."
Norris parted his lips and mouthed the same word over and over. It took a few minutes, but eventually the shape of what he was saying became clear.
Who?
"Who sent me? Besides God?"
He nodded.
"Don't worry, Jimmy. If I have my way, she'll die, too. That kind of woman doesn't obey. That kind of woman violates His natural order of things and the female's place in it. That kind of woman drove my father to his death and abandoned me. I'll take care that her sort pays any way I can."
The lips moved again.
Who?
"Franceses,
of course. She used you Jimmy. And I'll bet she didn't always use stromal cells. Tell me the truth. Didn't Edwards and you supply her fetal tissue the way you did Hamlin?"
The man's tears came again.
"My, my, still protecting her, even after she's betrayed you?"
Norris doubled his efforts to move, writhing his way between two workbenches where he knew there was a phone. As he tried to raise himself up, his tormentor knocked him down again with a vicious kick to his shoulders.
As he lay on his back, thrashing his head, choking and gurgling on his own blood, his lids clenched shut against the imminent cut of the blade, he heard the snaps of a briefcase open, followed by the high-pitched whine of a bone saw. It took him hours to clean up and dispose of Norris the way he'd planned. Then he wrapped up his bone saw with the white sheet before packing it in his briefcase, changed his clothing, and simply left the hospital through one of the maintenance doors.
Safely back in his new lair, he checked his e-mail. Well, well, he thought, recognizing from the logo of an East Village Internet cafe that his informant had seen fit to contact him again. He clicked on the accompanying paper clip insignia to open the attached document. It contained a portion of the hospital's admission and discharge records along with detailed instructions about what he was to do next. And there was a commendation to him for having dispatched Edwards.
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